hawse pipe

Robin Line

2012-01-14T16:00:00.002-05:00

Robin Line ship officer hat badge.
Three piece construction.
Eagle and shield sterling; wreath brass/gold-plate. Company insigne brass and enamel. Late Second World War era.
badge: 60mm x 65mm

On the second page of the March 17, 1954 edition of the Wilton Connecticut Bulletin there is long column about a GOP Sunday Tea. The Bulletin reports that the tea was a breezy affair attended by the community's upper crust; although not mentioned was the striking absence of Arthur Lewis, Jr. This would be explained by a single line next to the column reading: "Arthur Lewis Dies", followed by a pithy obit - speaking nothing about his frantic life nor his high-paced career or even funeral arrangements. Perhaps the same-page announcement of solo-trumpeter Roland Kutik indicated him more a town favorite than the two decade cut-throat steamship executive.

On his first vacation in years, Arthur R. Lewis, Jr. died of a heart attack in sunny Fort Lauderdale. He was the workaholic president of Seas Shipping Company, whose main and best-known subsidiary was the Robin Line. Lewis' professional life was driven by his twin obsessions: profits and desire to crush his firm's competition - the Farrell Line. The Robin Line and Farrell Line rivalry was one of the most vicious and vindictive rate wars in United States maritime history. This is striking in that the Lewis and Farrell families once shared a close personal and business relationship; in fact the Robin Line was established in 1920 by his father, Arthur R. Lewis, Sr. in concert with the Farrell family. Robin Line ships operated in the intercoastal trade as auxiliaries to various Farrell concerns; mainly the Isthmian Steamship Company - the US Steel shipping company - and the American South African Line - in which Lewis, Sr. had partial ownership. However for reasons not public and perhaps secreted away in the exclusive India House, this immediate and irreconcilable rift between the families resulted in the 1933 separation of ownership and management of all shared firms. The Farrells ended up with full control of the American South African Line and the Argonaut Line; the Lewises gained the Sea Shipping Company and its Robin Line.

Soon afer the division of interests, Lewis, Sr. died and his son took up his mantle with gusto. Lewis, Jr. continued to operate the Robin Line's four ships in the intercoastal trade and did not foray into international shipping. Relations between the families remained combative, and the opportunity for Lewis to strike a blow against the Farrells presented itself in the person of Sylvester J. Maddock. Maddock, an employee fired by the Farrells, convinced Lewis to bring the Robin Line into the African trade in 1935. As general agent, Maddock knew the ports and shippers in Africa and thus was able to build up the cargo volumes for the Robin Line at the expense of the American South African Line.

When the United States Shipping Board established direct service between the United States and South Africa, British lines - which prior operated a triangular service via the British Isles and other regions - decided to mimic the American model to diminish the upstart competition in a once sole British preserve. In order to avoid destructive competition between each other and to stave off British ascendancy, the American lines involved in the trade, following the same framework for other regional conferences and agreed in 1924 to establish the U.S.A.-South Africa Conference. The Conference set rates, routes and number of sailings for its members. This was an outward conference with jurisdiction only over cargoes leaving the United States; the lines created a separate complimentary body - the South Africa-U.S.A. Conference - with jurisdiction over the inbound cargoes coming from South Africa to the United States. Although South Africa was the center of the trade, the conference, in spite of its title, held an undefined jurisdiction for decades over the east and west coasts of Africa, as far north as the Azores and the Canary Islands on the west coast of Africa and up to Tanzania on the east. When the Robin Line applied for membership in the conference in 1935, James A. Farrell, Jr., blocked the application, thus initiating a bitter rate war. To try to drive the Robin Line from the trade, the Farrells orchestrated the U.S.A.-South Africa Conference to reduce its rates from twenty dollars to eight dollars a ton, and eventually to four dollars; this last figure barely covered half of operating costs, and as a result both companies including the other conference members were taking heavy losses on each voyage. The Robin Line did not collapse, however, because it was shipping large volumes of automobiles to South Africa for Chrysler and Ford. When the Robin Line bid for membership in the Conference again as a way of ending the rate war in 1936, the Farrell family once again had the application rejected. The Farrels felt confident in the liquidity of the American South African Line since it had the advantage of a generous US mail contract under the provisions of the Merchant Marine Act of 1928 to keep it afloat; yet despite the lack of such a contract, the Robin Line managed to survive. The rate war continued until 1937, when a reduction in the government subsidy at last forced the Farrell family to call it off; but losses had been so great that the American South African Line was on the verge of bankruptcy and saved only by profits garnered from other Farrell shipping interests in the Atlantic trade.

In 1938 the Robin Line managed to secure its own subsidy from the U.S. Maritime Commission, and the next year the Second World War with its high shipping rates temporarily served to halt the destructive competition. At the same time the Robin Line gained entrance into the much-coveted conference. Flush with cash and subsidies, the Robin Line acquired several new ships for the first time in almost a decade. These new ships were streamlined and were dubbed the "best-looking" freighters on the oceans by mariners at the time. With the ubiquitous automobile, farm and road-building equipment cargoes inbound, the Robin Line carried rock lobsters (crayfish), exotic timber, gold bullion and freight-neutral diamond cargoes outbound. These new ships were known for their extensive refrigeration plants for the former and welded-shut safe compartments for the latter, and smart crew accommodations.

Although the two lines remained rivals, they preferred to respect the agreements of the U.S.A.-South Africa Conference. During the Second World War, the vessels of both lines were requisitioned, and both operated government ships for the War Shipping Administration under ships husband agreements. After the return of peace, the two lines resumed their bitter rivalry. In hearings before the U.S. Maritime Commission, the Robin Line, because of the opposition from the Farrell Line, lost the subsidies on the route from U.S. Atlantic ports to West Africa in 1947. However, when Farrell declined to handle the unusually large volume of automobile exports to South Africa, the Robin Line - who previously provided the service and won lasting goodwill among the automobile exporters - took up the slack to its benefit. In 1955 the last of the British lines withdrew from the route, leaving as active conference members only the Robin and Farrell Lines (American South African Lines renamed) in the region.

With Lewis, Jr.'s death none of the family members wished to follow his breakneck work ethic, instead they elected Winthrop O. Cook as Seas Shipping Company new president. As president, Cook found before him the expensive task of replacing the company's old wartime surplus vessels. Instead of investing in a costly and immediately unprofitable project, Lewis' heirs decided to avoid the problem altogether and sold the Robin Line to Moore-McCormack in March 1957; making a tidy profit, as seen in the transaction records as argued before United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit (371 F.2d 528): "Seas Shipping Company, Inc., sold ten ships to Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. [...] for $5,466,668 in cash and notes and 300,000 shares of Mooremac stock." Soon thereafter, the new owner removed the vessels of the former Robin Line from the African trade, leaving only the Farrell Line in the U.S.A.-South Africa Conference.

House Flags of Robin Line

Blue with a white lozenge bearing a red R. 1920-1942.
Blue with a white oval in the hoist, with a stylized wing with three sections sweeping toward the fly; oval contains red R. 1942-1957.

Ships of Robin Line
It is worth noting that the Robin Line was so called because all its ship names began with the word "Robin".

Pre-War
Robin Adair (built at close of the Great War by Skinner & Eddy Shipyard, Seattle)
Robin Doncaster
Robin Goodfellow
Robin Gray

Second World War (1942-1948)
Robin Adair
Robin Doncaster
Robin Goodfellow
Robin Gray
Robin Locksley
Robin Sherwood
Robin Tuxford
Robin Wentley
Post-War (1948-1955)
Robin Doncaster
Robin Goodfellow
Robin Gray
Robin Hood
Robin Kettering
Robin Kirk
Robin Locksley
Robin Mowbray
Robin Sherwood
Robin Trent
Robin Tuxford
Robin Wentley

1955-1957
Robin Doncaster
Robin Gray
Robin Hood
Robin Kettering
Robin Kirk
Robin Locksley
Robin Sherwood
Robin Trent
Robin Tuxford
Robin Wenley

Moore-McCormack purchase (1957)
Robin Gray
Robin Hood
Robin Kirk
Robin Locksley
Robin Mowbray
Robin Sherwood
Robin Trent

Principal Executives
Arthur R. Lewis, Sr.: 1920-1933
Arthur R. Lewis, Jr.: 1934-1954
Winthrop O. Cook: 1954-1957

References
The Decisions volumes are particularly interesting as they document legislative activities around and Robin Lines gripes with the U.S.A.-South Africa Conference; relevant entries may be found under Seas Shipping Company. Interestingly, the Maritime Commission and its successor Federal Maritime Board did not lend a kind ear to Lewis. Albion's monograph is interesting in that it is an economic history of the South Africa trade with a focus on the Farrell Line; it presents the family in a positive light and takes an apologetic approach to its foreign-flag activities, anti-union stance and ignores overall poor crew conditions; Lewis and the rate war is mentioned practically in passing.

"Arthur Lewis Dies." Bulletin, Wilton Connecticut. March 17, 1954: p 2.

Obituary. New York Times, March 17, 1954.

Federal Maritime Board. Decisions, Vol. 4, 1952-1956. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1963.

U.S. Maritime Commission. Decisions, Vol. 3, 1947-1952. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1963.

War Shipping Administration. United States Maritime Service Training Manual, Deck Branch Training. Washington, D.C.: Maritime Service, 1943. p. 45.

Robert G. Albion. Seaports South of Sahara: The Achievements of an American Steamship Service. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts, 1959.

Rene De La Pedraja. A Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Merchant Marine and Shipping Industry: Since the Introduction of Steam. New York: Greenwood, 1994.

Colin Stewart. Flags, Funnels and Hull Colours. London: Adlard Coles Ltd., 1957.

Captain Frederick James Newdigate Wedge. Brown's Flags and Funnels of British and Foreign Steamship Companies, 5th Edition. Glasgow: Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1951.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit. 371 F.2d 528: Seas Shipping Company, Inc., Petitioner, v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent. Argued December 1, 1966 Decided January 16, 1967.

Many kind thanks to Captain Jack Misner for sharing his recollections of his time with the Robin Line.

Robin Line, Hat badge, obverse
Eagle and shield sterling; wreath brass/gold-plate. Company insigne brass and enamel.
Second World War era.
Mounted on wool backing and mohair band.
badge: 60mm x 65mm

This badge uses the US Maritime Service officer hat badge as a base and has the the anchor device replaced with a company insigne. As mentioned in previous posts, this was a common practice followed during the Second World War by ship officers throughout industry. This particular badge is interesting is that it does not use the company house flag on the the badge, rather a bow design element. Some Robin Line ships used the Blue-White-Red wings flanking the R in oval device on the bow; the slight incline of the R denotes speed, which the Line was famous for.

Do note the high degree of corrosion on exposed copper/brass elements and chipped enamel.
The insigne is without or has a corrosion obscured hallmark. I am unable to remove the the badge from backing to determine any hallmarks on the other component elements; the top keeper nut is welded in place by corrosion.

Robin Line, Hat badge, obverse detail

Robin Line, Hat badge, backing and mohair band detail

Robin Line, coat lapel badge
No hallmark. Gold-plate brass. Second World War era.

This badge would be found in pairs on either coat lapel of a ship officer's reefer. This badge is gold-plated brass, with most of the gold rubbed away. Although the badge itself is without a readable hallmark, the pin snap has a miniscule H&H (Hilborn & Hamburg) star hallmark on its face and is marked Sterling.

British Tanker Co.

2011-10-28T15:56:00.000-04:00

British Tanker Co.
Officer hat badge
Metal, gold wire, silk and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1940s.

Lately there has been an increased number of television commercials urging tourists to flock to vacations on the Gulf Coast - all of which are sponsored by British Petroleum. This brings to mind that last year I presented a British Petroleum Shipping Co. Officer hat badge, here. In that post I mentioned an earlier hat badge used between 1926 and 1955; presented now is said badge.

The period in which this hat badge was worn was an exciting one for the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and by extension British Tanker Co. - profits were terrific, ships were built, the War came and Persia became Iran. There was much expansion of British oil exploration throughout the Middle East, and the Kingdom of Persia in particular. With government backing, the tanker fleet became one of the largest in the world, and its ships could be seen plying the waters between the Persian Gulf and the Suez on up to the British Isles - with regular stop-overs at the Port of Aden, where British interests created a safe haven for its sailors in the protectorate. In an effort to have a more efficient and profitable tanker fleet, vessels were fitted with modern tanks, pumping systems and numeous safety measures. The Second World War came, and with the declaration of hostilities, British Tanker Co. found its fleet under attack; by war's end, a third of its assets sunk and later replaced. By 1955, the British Merchantile Marine reached its zenith, and afterward met an eventual swift decline. BP survived, the fall, however.

References:
Over this past year, I have come across many excellent and encyclopedic works on general British Petroleum history, with scant passages on its tanker fleet throughout. Bill Harvey's book remains the best reference for BP tankers, in specific.

Bill Harvey, BP Tankers: A Group Fleet History. London: Greenhill Books, 2006.

Henry Longhurst, Adventure in Oil: The Story of British Petroleum. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1959.

Ronald W. Ferrier, The History of the British Petroleum Company, Vol. 1: The Developing Years, 1901-1932. London: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

James H. Bamberg, The History of the British Petroleum Company, Vol. 2: The Anglo-Iranian Years, 1928-1954. London: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

James H. Bamberg, The History of British Petroleum, Vol. 3: The Challenge of Nationalism, 1950-1975. London: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

British Tanker Co., officer hat badge, obverse
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1940s.

The central badge device is comprised of a rectangular British Tanker Co. house flag of applied ribbed silk fabric - with details stitched in silk floss - and outlined with coiled gold metal. The flag is surrounded by laurel leaves of gold purl with stems of applied coiled gold metal. Surmouting all is a stamped gilt base metal lion passant gardant. All is stitched on a padded black wool base.

British Tanker Co., officer hat badge, obverse detail

British Tanker Co. Ltd.
House Flag.
838.2 x 1219.2 mm
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Pope Collection.

The house flag of the British Tanker Co. Ltd, London. On a white filed is a red cross with a green diamond in the center bearing a gold lion passant gardant. This design was in use from 1926 to 1955 - the central lion symbolizing the Company's Iranian interests. The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fiber bunting; it has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. The flag's central design is painted. A rope and two Inglefield clips are attached.

British Tanker Co. Ltd.
British Gratitude ship model.
Scale: 1:192
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

The British Gratitude is depicted the model below in wartime rig with paravanes, light anti-aircraft machine guns, and anti-torpedo net booms and posts. British Gratitude was owned and operated by the British Tanker Company. Built in 1942 by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson, it was 470 feet in length and 8463 tons gross, very small by contemporary standards. It survived the Second World War and continued to have an active career under the ownership of British Petroleum. She was eventually sold for breaking up in 1959.

From the Collection of Lyle Halkett I present two interesting British Petroleum hat badges.

The first is a modern pattern of the first British Tanker Company design, followed by that of a 1940's pattern of a BTC Petty Officer hat badge; both follow the same symbolic and stylistic language as other presented BP badges. Do take particular note of the Petty officer badge, as it follows the precedent set in The Mercantile Marine (Uniform) Order, 1921 Schedule which states that a Petty Officer's cap badge is to be of the same design as hat of a officer's with the exception that the surrounding oak leaves and acorns be deleted. The schedule outlines a previously announced, but not defined uniform order from 1919.

British Tanker Co., officer hat badge, obverse
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Pattern circa 1940s.
Collection of Lyle Halkett

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Chief Petty Officer hat badge, obverse.
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1940s.
Collection of Lyle Halkett

U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division ship's officer

2011-02-23T16:48:00.017-05:00

U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division hat badge
Three piece construction.
Stamped gold metal, red enamel on shield.
No hallmark.
Circa Second World War era.

In the post immediately preceding this one, I detailed several variations of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division hat badge. Here, I present two additional examples of the hat badge, a fake, collar brass, shoulder boards and a cuff device.

It may be worth noting that much of the collar insignia worn and organization aboard today's Military Sealift Command ships may be traced to the hazy and hurried period which saw the birth of USTC-WD. In the late 1940s (which reached its culmination in 1954), the USATC-WD was collapsed into its Navy analog and became the Military Sea Transportation Service; and a decade and a half later was renamed the Military Sealift Command. Most of the varied nautical customs and courtesies followed by USATC-WD personnel - they being old-salts or sea dogs at the tail end long of windjammer sailor traditions - as observed by troops and war brides ferried from overseas stateside, have fallen by the wayside. Today's MSC technocrats, contract crews and unionmen have a rich past to consider, if they so choose.

Hat Badges

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse.

Shield with red enamel on alternating stripes variation.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse detail.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, reverse.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, reverse detail.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse.

Plain shield with no enamel variation.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse detail.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, reverse.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse.

Plain shield with no enamel variation.

This specific hat badge is on display at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum. It is in a shadowbox with an array of other hat badges worn by U.S. Merchant Marine Academy graduates. Among the other devices shown are U.S. Maritime Service commissioned and warrant officer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Floating Plant personnel, and Grace Lines. This badge appears to be a Pasquale badge, bringing to mind that these these devices were crafted with expedience at the end of the Second World War. I suspect more care in regard to their detail came about in post-war years.

USATC-WD, Fake Hat badge, obverse.

This is a fake hat badge. During the Second World War, it appears that only Meyer and Gemsco eagles were used, with Vanguard-designed eagles being kept out of the fray. Perhaps maybe a Korean War-era Vanguard eagle such as this may have been defaced to create a TC-WD device; at least one is known to exist in the collection of Dave Collar. One means to determine a fake is to remove the TC device (if affixed with prongs) and look for an IOH (Institute of Heraldry) mark on the reverse. An easier determiner would be to look for the IOH number. For example, V-12 was used by Vanguard Industries beginning in 1965, with V-12-N after 1974 to denote a "Navy Approved" device. The TC-WD was long dissolved by this time.

Collar Brass

USATC-WD, Junior 3rd Officer collar brass

Despite the fact that the USATC-WD was a military organization, it was comprised of civilians, and as such they held traditional marine positions and titles. As follows is relative Army Rank and Marine title by department:

Deck
Colonel ... Master
Lt. Col ... Chief Officer
Major ... 1st Officer
Captain ... 2nd Officer
1st Lt ... 3rd Officer
2nd Lt ... Jr 3rd Officer

Engine
Colonel ... Chief Engineer
Lt. Col ... Staff Engineer
Major ... 1st Asst Engineer
Captain ... 2nd Asst Engineer
1st Lt ... 3rd Asst Engineer
2nd Lt ... Jr 3rd Asst Engineer

Steward
Major ... Chief Steward
Captain ... 2nd Steward
1st Lt ... 3rd Steward

Agent
Major ... Ship Transportation Agent
1st Lt ... Ship Transportation Clerk
2nd Lt ... Asst Ship Transportation Clerk

USATC-WD, 3rd Officer collar brass

USATC-WD, Chief Officer collar brass

USATC-WD, Master collar brass

Shoulder Boards

USATC-WD, Junior Officer shoulder boards

I would tentatively say that this set of shoulder boards would belong to a 3rd Officer; even though post-war regulations do not have such a board in the rank tables. Once again, for expediency's sake, it is highly probable that the ½-stripe board was not available (these were not commonly manufactured items), and the closest corresponding board to a USATC-WD 3rd Officer in the other marine services would have been Lieutenant (Junior Grade); hence the incongruous Lt (jg) board.

Do note also that the boards have an applied U.S. Army Transportation Corps device as opposed to a woven device. The buttons are of late war U.S. Maritime Service vintage.

Rank stripes on cuffs and shoulder boards somewhat followed the relative rank structure found in the other sea services.

Deck
Master ... 4 stripes
Chief Officer ... 3½
1st Officer ... 3
2nd Officer ... 2
3rd Officer ... 1
Jr 3rd Officer ... ½

Engine
Chief Engineer ... 4
Staff Engineer ... 3½
1st Asst Engineer ... 3
2nd Asst Engineer ... 2
3rd Asst Engineer ... 1
Jr 3rd Asst Engineer ... ½

Steward
Chief Steward ... 3
2nd Steward ... 2
3rd Steward ... 1

Agent
Ship Transportation Agent ... 3
Ship Transportation Clerk ... 1
Asst Ship Transportation Clerk ... ½

USATC-WD, 3rd Officer shoulder boards

Note the applied cuff device to the board. This device was used in place of the U.S. Navy officer and staff corps devices, specifying USATC-WD officer status; many of the marine services adopted some variation of U.S. Navy officer and enlisted uniforms, merely substituting buttons or devices for USN ones. Interestingly, the USATC-WD did not have its own specific button made; instead USN and "Merchant Marine" buttons were used.

Cuff Device

USATC-WD, Officer cuff device

U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division ship's officer

2011-02-12T17:26:00.018-05:00

U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division hat badge
Three piece construction.
Stamped brass with gold wash and applied red paint on shield.
Gemsco (NY) hallmark.
Circa Second World War era.

At the mid-point of the Second World War, and as the U.S. military establishment turned greater attention and allocated more resources toward the task of fighting the Japanese Empire, the U.S. Army streamlined its marine operations. The three disparate services which comprised the Army's water-borne forces came under the jurisdiction of the Transportation Corps. No longer was there an Army Transport (ocean going), Inter Island (Phillipine Island transports) nor Harbor Boat (intercoastal) Service; rather the all-inclusive Water Division. The insignia and uniforms of the previous services were cast aside in 1944, and division took a distinctly Navy look.

This hat badge is one of two designs worn by licensed ship's officers.

References
Dave Collar. "Insignia of the Army Transportation Service in World War II." ASMIC: The Trading PostOctober-December 1994: 29-43.

William K. Emerson. "Section XIII. The Army's Navy: Chapter Thirty-Six. Army Transport Service and Harbor Boat Service." Encyclopedia of United States Army Insignia and Uniforms. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. 331-352.

Steve Soto and Cynthia Soto. "A collector's guide to the History, Uniforms and Memorabilia of the U.S. Merchant Marine and Army Transport Service during World War II." Privately Printed, 1996 (revised 2008).

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse.

Published regulations from August 1945 call for a red shield; however, for expediency's sake, many examples of this hat badge lack the red shield. There are several variations on the theme:

Shield with no color.
Shield with red paint.
Shield with red enamel over all (obscuring the stars and stripes underneath).
Shield with red enamel on alternating stripes.

The reason behind calling for a red shield can only be guessed at.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, obverse, detail.

Changes to Army Transport and Harbor Boat Service uniforms and insignia was an evolving process, reflecting not only organizational but logistics processes within the services, but also the U.S. Army.

For close to a half-century the ATS maintained its own culture, traditions and fashion, closely mirroring that of the Merchant Marine and distinct from that of the U.S. Army. As was common, young graduates of the various maritime schools and old salts alike would sign on with the ATS for a period of time, return to industry, and then go back to government service. Service aboard ATS ships was akin to work on commercial ships manned by Merchant Mariners. As a result, they both groups spoke the same jargon, shared the same age-old rituals and wore fairly similar uniforms of the trade.

After the end of the First World War, nautical garb in the United States followed the smart trends set in Europe, and those of Great Britain in particular - albeit with an American interpretation. Gone were the old chokers and pillbox hats; in their place were rolled collar coats, Windsor-knot ties and combination hats. In the staterooms of the larger ships, licensed officers wore sleeve lace; on deck and in the wheelhouse, their hats had handsome and beautifully embroidered hat badges in silk floss and bullion thread. As shoulder boards with branch colors became the rage in Europe, they too were adopted by the Merchant Marine, and by extension the ATS. Thus, uniforms aboard ship were familiar to others in the same trade the world over.

As the Second World War wore on, the United States garment industry was taxed to the limits of production. To increase production, many uniforms were standardized and organizations within the Armed and Government Services tended to take on similar (if not the same) insignia. The ATS was not immune to these changes. Within the Army's water-borne services, the once distinct look to ATS uniforms changed as fabrics disappeared and the influx of mariners increased. Its ranks were augmented by the best and brightest graduates from U.S. Maritime Service schools, who brought their training uniforms along with them; ever thrifty and in an effort to build division-wide esprit de corps and professional appearance (read: military), Army regulations adapted the contemporary stock of uniforms and insignia. For licensed officers, the striking ATS hat badge was replaced with the Navy-style device as seen above; regulations called for red shield with a Transportation Corps device atop it. Shoulder boards were replaced with U.S. Navy style boards with TC devices as opposed to a star. And, the service - now division - retained the distinct U.S. Army tradition of having insignia on coat lapels. The mariners were officially permitted to wear khaki uniforms - like their counterparts in the Maritime Service and U.S. Navy - bringing about a small constellation of insignia and devices.

The illustrated hat badge was worn primarily by ship's officers (licensed mates and engineers) serving at the Army schools in Louisiana and Florida, and on ships plying the Pacific. It was worn for a couple of years, and was quite unpopular as insignia go.

Many mariners held-out changing their uniforms and adopting the new insignia; but, with the transfer of the division to the newly-formed and Navy-controlled Military Sea Transportation Service, it was follow regulations or leave.

In the future I will post more images of USATC-WD insignia and its successor service, the MSTS; it provides an interesting windows on the convergence of nautical insignia trends at the close of the Second World War and into the Cold War.

USATC-WD, Hat badge, reverse.

References for the Collector

2010-09-04T14:02:00.008-04:00

U.S. Maritime Service Commissioned and Warrant Officer hat
Winter hat; navy blue wool with wicker frame, ½-in. wide. gold bullion chinstrap and two 22½-ligne gilt cap screws. (note: if strap is ¼-in., hat would be that of a warrant officer).

Circa Second World War.

It is one thing to collect, and another to actually know what one is collecting. In a previous post, I detailed some known fakes and fantasies, and mentioned a few print sources for the collector. As follows is a reference bibliography; I will keep running updates as articles and works of interest appear - some are followed by a link to a downloadable pdf.

References:
Rudy Basurto. "Insignia of America's Little Known Seafarers, 2nd Ed." Privately Printed, nd. pdf here.

Rudy Basurto. "Insignia of America's Little Known Seafarers, 3rd Ed. (edited and revised by Steve Soto and Cynthia Soto)." Privately Printed, 2008. pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #1 (Summer 1992)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #2 (Autumn 1992)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #3 (Winter 1992)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #4 (New Year's Special Issue - 1993)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #5 (Summer 1993)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #6 (Mid-Summer 1993)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #7 (Autumn 1993)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #8 (Special 1993 Encyclopedia Edition)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #9 (Fall 1993)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #10 (1994 New Year's Special)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #11 (Spring 1994)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #11 (Spring 1994 - The Issue That Never Was)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #12 (Summer 1994)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Crow's Nest #13 (Fall 1994)." pdf here.

Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker, 2nd. "Specialty and Distinguishing Marks: U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Maritime Service, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Public Health Service, 3rd Revision." Privately Printed, 1996. pdf here.

Dave Collar. "Insignia of the Army Transportation Service in World War II." ASMIC: The Trading Post October-December 1994: 29-43.

Dave Collar. "Insignia of the United States Maritime Service, World War II." ASMIC: The Trading Post April-June 1995.

Dave Collar. "Insignia of the United States Shipping Board." ASMIC: The Trading Post October-December 1996.

William K. Emerson. "Section XIII. The Army's Navy: Chapter Thirty-Six. Army Transport Service and Harbor Boat Service." Encyclopedia of United States Army Insignia and Uniforms. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996. 331-352.

Steve Soto and Cynthia Soto. "A collector's guide to the History, Uniforms and Memorabilia of the U.S. Merchant Marine and Army Transport Service during World War II." Privately Printed, 1996 (revised 2008).

Joseph J. Tonelli. Visor hats of the United States Armed Forces: 1930-1950. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publicartions, 2003.

Fakes and Fantasies

2010-08-23T17:20:00.010-04:00

For a collector of period items there is nothing more vexing than a fake or forgery offered as an original, vintage item. The higher the rarity, the greater the amount of fakes circulate. Unfortunately, in the field of nautical insignia and hat badges in particular, there is a cottage industry of unscrupulous vendors offering fakes and thus inserting into an already small field a score of spurious items. Some collectors unwittingly scoop up these fakes, to the financial gain of the faker and detriment of the hobby.

An issue with maritime industry and U.S. Merchant Marine hat badges is that published references are few and far between for the interested student and serious collector. It is often difficult to determine what is truly a period or piece, given the paucity of information and relative sophistication of fakers. Coupled with the aforementioned, insignia items are often altered, defaced or invented by bored mariners, thus provenance and determination of "genuineness" is at times problematic. Fortunately there exists a small number of references devoted to the subject: a self-published book by Rudy Basurto acts as a general catalog and starting point for anyone interested in the subject - it is not an academic treatment of insignia, rather is more a collection of images and pithy descriptions and some of the insignia depicted exist only in long-lost regulations; a smattering of articles published in the ASMIC Trading Post by Dave Collar and Bill Emerson have depth to their descriptions and illustrate insignia quite well; a more specialized treatment of U.S. Maritime Service and Army Transport Service (in its various guises) is found in a self-published work by Steve Soto and Cynthia Soto; ATS-only topics are treated by Bill Emerson in his encyclopedia survey of U.S. Army Insignia; perusing Herbert Hillary "Sarge" Booker's newsletter "Crow's Nest" details some of Basurto's material and offers variations of maritime insignia; Joseph Tonelli, in his Visor hats of the United States Armed Forces presents some handsome examples of many common and not-so-common head wear of the sea services, with the Maritime Service and Merchant Marine included. In a future post I will provide a list of the majority of published and "self-published" works on the topic. Readily accessible, Collar and Emerson are indispensable; take care in looking at Basurto's "book"; it is a good starting point, however many of the hazy depictions of insignia have been picked up by forgers.

As follows is a gallery of fakes, plain and simple, along with a discussion of each. A great many of these items were manufactured in the 1980s and began re-surfacing in the early 2000s to the present day.

ATS Chief Petty Officer
This device comes up in online auctions from time-to-time with examples in bronze. The dead give-away for this badge is the "hand applied" rope. The wire is loose, and the reverse solder is blotchy. Fakes of this badge often have the NS Meyer hallmarks - this is due to the fact that the dies were sold at auction in the 1990s when the NS Meyer plant closed - every quarter about 3-4 of these badges find their way to sale.

USMS Chief Petty Officer
The applied anchor is a dead giveaway. No USMS CPO devices were ever manufactured that have said application.

US Coast & Geodetic Survey Officer
This is a fun badge. The eagle is actually a MSTS eagle with a USCG shield and USN anchors. US C&GS hat badges from the time of the Second World War are exclusively woven. Only postwar did metal hat badges come to be manufactured; and with those matching NOAA examples from the present day.

US Coast & Geodetic Survey Senior Chief Petty Officer
This badge is problematic in several ways. It was not until 1968 that the US Navy Uniform Board approved a Master and Senior Chief Petty Officer cap insignia - similar to their collar devices, with one or two silver stars superimposed on the anchor, inverted and centered on the stock. The US Coast Guard soon followed the US Navy's lead in 1970, as did the US C&GS. The US C&GS never had Chief Petty Officers, per say, as all unlicensed mariners aboard ship were un-uniformed Federal, civil-service employees. Proposed insignia tables were published in 1965 without examples being produced. With the transfer of the agency to the Environmental Science Services Administration, all non-commissioned officer positions were removed and finally ceased to be with the 1970 reorganization into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Further complicating matters for this particular hat badge is the fact that the star is not of the type used by any of the licensed manufacturers of US Military establishment insignia, and and the anchor itself is that of a US Navy ROTC/Anapolis midshipman. The only US CG&S true device is the triangle within the circle.

USMS Supply Officer
This purports to be a hat badge, however it may be an attempt to create a collar badge which existed only in regulation form.

US Navy Commissioned Officer
This is quite frankly a fantasy. An actual US Navy Commissioned Officer hat badge of the "pre-1940s" type has been detailed previously. This badge may also be seen in a similar configuration as a WSA badge with bronze anchors. Caveat emptor.

USMS Gunner
No such badge was ever produced or existed. Unofficial ATS examples are without supporting strut and are wreaths with a pin-on center device; the same is true for MSTS hat badges.

ATS Radioman
This is sometimes advertised as either an ATS Electrician or Radioman. See above.

ATS Craftsman
See above.

ATS Clerk
See above.

US Army Harbor Boat Service - Tug Boat Service
This is a fantasy.

Harbor Boat Service Officer
This is a fantasy, and a fun one, at that. Oftentimes fantasies will purport to be a variation by the mere application of a small device on the shield of a US Navy Commissioned Officer's hat badge. Given that not only is the hat badge incorrect for the period (pre-1940), the US Army Quartermaster's device is also incorrect for the same.

Mersey Docks Harbourmaster/Pilot

2010-06-27T19:21:00.001-04:00

Mersey Docks Harbourmaster/Pilot hat badge
Wool backing and wreath of silver thread.
Central device, stamped white metal.
Circa Second World War era.

A fact often overlooked by those interested in convoy history is that each ship that entered or left a port area was piloted by an individual versed in the particulars of the waters surrounding the port; when a ship was straffed by airplane fire, those on the bridge were targeted first with many a casualty being the pilot.

To this day, pilots are still employed and are organized in associations and pilotage authorities much as they have been for the past hundred years. A major pilotage house, such as the Virginia Pilot Association, has about 40 active pilots, who steer a yearly 2000 or more vessels in and out of Hampton Roads. These days, they are fortunate that their launches are motorized, as in years past, the vessels were predominantly powered by sail and oars. Following in the Anglo-American tradition, apprentice pilots live on station, work some seven days a week around the clock, and are subject to U.S. Coast Guard examinations, tests and practical demonstrations. Moreover, to prove their knowledge of the sea about them, apprentices must re-create mariner's charts of Hampton Roads from memory. All of these skills are needed for a knowledgeable and professional group of pilots - all ready at a moment's notice to bring an oil tanker or yacht to port, the former's stopping distance measured in miles. These individual work hard, and without whose dedication to knowing their waterways shipping depends, precious cargoes would remain offshore. In interesting article about pilots on the C&D canal may be found here, View from the Bridge.

Much like Hampton Roads, Liverpool was a major embarkation port and convoy terminal during the Second World War; the city's port and train facilies were key links in the Allied war effort's supply chain, and as such the Germans considered it a major strategic target. Despite the constant barrage of aerial bombings, on average a convoy either entered or left Merseyside each day for the duration of the War. Interestingly enough, the last house destroyed by Luftwaffe bombing was Hitler's half-brother Alois' previous residence at 102 Upper Stanhope Street in Toxteth.

Presented is Mersey Docks and Harbour Board offical's hat badge. This device was worn by both Harbourmasters and pilots in the Liverpool Pilot Service. In the United Kingdom, a Harbourmaster is an appointed position once held exclusively by Navy Officers, they issue local safety information, oversee the maintenance and provision of navigational aids within port areas, co-ordinate maritime emergency response, do vessel inspections and oversee pilotage services. In a large port, such as Liverpool's Merseyside, there is a head Harbormaster assisted by a small staff of assisting officers - during the Second World War, about 20; a priviledge of office is a white-bordered Union Flag with a white central disc bearing the initials "QHM" (or "KHM") beneath the crown, which is flown from the gaff or yardarm either afloat or on land.

The Liverpool Pilot Service has historically been an independent cooperative association, and is now operated and licensed by the Mersey Docks & Harbour Board (MD&HB) the Port of Liverpool authority. Its stations are located at Point Lynas on the North coast of Anglesey and at the Mersey Bar. At its inception up until the 1960s, the Liverpool Pilot Service covered the approaches to all ports around the Eastern Irish Sea from Holyhead in the South, to Barrow in the North, and the East coast of the Isle of Man; now, pilots are employed to guide ships to the River Mersey ports, which include the Liverpool and Birkenhead Docks, the Manchester Ship Canal and Garston. It is worth mentioning that at latter, vessels are handed-over to a once fierce rival: the Manchester Ship Canal Company Pilots.

Mersey Docks, Hat badge, obverse.
Metal and silver wire on wool backing. Metal central device.
Circa Second World War.
In terms of harbor agencies and government boards, this hat badge follows the British standard design of large laurels leaves with a municipal central device. More often than not, the leaves for other agencies are gold bullion - the Mersey Docks wreath is unusual in that respect, but still within "symbolic bounds." The central device is quite interesting being that it is Athena in a throne over Posideon; this hearkens to Liverpool's claim to being the "Athens of the North." Interestingly this same device is not found anywhere in Mersey Docks and Harbour Board Offices building except on the uniform buttons of the Harbourmasters and pilots.

Mersey Docks, Hat badge, obverse.
Metal and silver wire on wool backing. Metal central device.
Circa Second World War.

Mersey Docks, Hat badge, obverse, detail.
Metal and silver wire on wool backing. Metal central device.
Circa Second World War.

Views of the Mersey Docks & Harbour Building

U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Officer

2010-06-14T20:11:00.004-04:00

U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Office hat badge (1st design, 2nd pattern)
One piece construction. Seal, 25mm diameter; Anchor, 50mm length.
Obscured AE CO N.Y. hallmark (American Emblem Company).
Anchor and device stamped nickel; blue enamel band and red, white & blue shield.

This is the second pattern of the first design of the USMS CPO hat badge; it was worn from 1939, with the creation of the USMS training program, until the dissolution of formal Coast Guard management of training program and its transfer to the War Shipping Administration in 1942. 1942 saw a re-design of U.S. Maritime service insignia, and with it, the USMS CPO hat badge. Both the first pattern of the first design and second design have been respectively treated before, here and here.

This specific badge is often misidentified as a USMS Warrant Officer device; this is an understandable error, as mid-war, individuals who trained at USMS Radio Officer schools were issued USMS CPO hat badges and collar disks, and upon graduation held the appointed rank of Warrant Officer within the U.S. Maritime Service. Compounding some of confusion is that by war's end, USMS Regulations published in 1944 stated that officers in the Radio Department, depending upon vessel tonnage and class, and certificate status could rank anywhere from Lieutenant to Ensign, vid.: U.S. Maritime Service Officers' Handbook, 1944 p5.

USMS CPO Hat badge, obverse.

USMS CPO Hat badge, obverse detail.

USMS CPO Hat badge, reverse.
Note that the screw post and pins have been sheared off and replaced by a flat pin. It, like its predecessor has the curious "CO N.Y." or "CD N.Y." hallmark.

British Petroleum Shipping Co.

2010-06-09T18:23:00.031-04:00

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Officer hat badge
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1960s.

With contemporary events unfolding regarding the catastrophe in the Gulf, it is worth pausing for a moment to think about transport of petroleum products. One of the safest, economical and most expedient methods to transport liquid petroleum and its derivatives is via ship. In fact, about 34% of all worldwide seaborne trade is devoted to the transport of oil. This entry is the first of several regarding oil tanker fleets and officer insignia.

British Petroleum was originally formed as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1909 to exploit oil deposits in Persia. The British Tanker Co. Ltd started in 1915 to handle sea transport and achieve a contained, integrated oil company model akin to its American counterparts. The parent group was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935. In 1951 the company's Iranian assets were nationalized, a crisis partly resolved by negotiation in 1954 when the company was re-named British Petroleum. In 1955, the fleet was re-christened BP Shipping. During the 1970s BP extended its oil interests to the North Sea and Alaska, and eventually moved to major oil fields in the Middle East and Gulf of Mexico. The fleet and its manning remained in the province of BP until 1986 when staffing went the way of a modern crimping system known as "agency manning" concurrent with BP re-flagging its fleet under various flags of convenience.

At present, BP Shipping is based out of Singapore and operates a fleet of 77 vessels and charters an additional 115. Its vessels are comprised of crude oil tankers, product tankers and LNG (liquefied natural gas) carriers. In its employ are some 2300 mariners and 600 onshore personnel. In all, 50% of BP's maritime cargo is carried on these ships worldwide. BP remains one of the few major oil producing corporations that continues to man a fleet under its own house flag.

British Petroleum Shipping hat badges may be found in three distinct variations:
1. 1915-1926. Merchant Navy-style hat badge with the current house flag - a red flag with a horizontal white band expanded at the centre in the form of a circle, the band bearing the black letters "BTC", the "T" being larger. I have read of the red being bordered in black; however I have yet to see an example.

2. 1926-1955. Similar to the illustrated hat badge, with then current house flag - a St. George's flag with a green diamond in the center - with a golden lion passant gardant above all.

3. 1955-1968 (present?). The illustrated badge; the golden lion replaced by a red lion rampant.

Images and analysis of several of the older badges may be found here.

References:
Bill Harvey, BP Tankers: A Group Fleet History. London: Greenhill Books, 2006.

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Officer hat badge, obverse
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1960s.

In terms of British hat badges, the BP Shipping follows the British standard design of house flag as central device, Royal Navy wreath and Tudor maritime crown surmounting all. Over time, the embroidered leaves have grown thicker; and catalogs may denote the badge as belonging to the agency placing Deck and Engineering officers aboard BP vessels - Chiltern Maritime Ltd.

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Officer hat badge, detail.

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Officer hat badge, variation.
Circa 1950s.

Note the bronze-toned Tudor crown and the British Merchant Navy-style wreath.

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Chief Petty Officer hat badge, obverse.
Metal, gold wire and colored thread on wool backing.
Circa 1960s.

British Petroleum Shipping Co. Chief Petty Officer hat badge, detail.

British Petroleum Tanker Co. Ltd.
House Flag.
914.4 x 1422.4 mm
Circa 1955-67

The house flag of the BP Tanker Co. Ltd. On a white field, there is a red St. George's cross with a green diamond in the center, bearing a red lion, rampant. This design was in use from 1955 to 1968 and was re-introduced in 1984. The flag is made of a wool and synthetic fibre bunting. It has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. The lion is printed. A rope and two Inglefield clips is attached.

British Petroleum Tanker Co. Ltd.
House Flag.
Circa 1940s.

The house flag of the BP Tanker Co. Ltd. from the 1940s. On a white field, there is a red St George's cross with a green diamond in the center, bearing a golden lion passant gardant. This design was in use from 1926 to 1955. The flag is made of a wool and cotton bunting. It has a cotton hoist and is machine sewn. The lion is printed.

U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Officer

2010-04-18T17:39:00.133-04:00

U.S. Maritime Commission Cadre /
U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Office hat badge (1st design, 1st pattern)
One piece construction. Seal, 25mm diameter; Anchor, 50mm length.
Obscured AE CO N.Y. hallmark (American Emblem Company)
Anchor and device stamped gold-patinated brass; blue enamel band and red, white & blue shield.
Pre-to-early Second World War era; 1938-1939.

This is the first design of the USMS CPO hat badge; it was worn from 1938, with the institution of the USMC, up until the formal creation of the USMS training program in 1939. The badge itself may be found in plain brass or gold, as well as plated silver or nickel. The early gold-patinated brass patterns were issued in 1938-1939, followed by plated silver or nickel badges and then a new design came about in 1942. A description of the second design may be found here. In practice, in the period leading up to the Second World War, USMS CPOs, more often than not wore the more handsome embroidered hat badges - which were of the same design as the stamped metal device, albeit without the band of stars - as evidenced by an image in the article "Heros of Wartime Science and Mercy" in National Geographic Magazine, December 1943 page 717, as seen here.
Concurrent with WSA control of the USMS, and the stripping away of the ship-building component of the USMS, came a color and design shift: for the hat badge: the illustrated deco motif of a stylized Federal "classic shield" gave way to a detailed foul anchor charge on "official shield" of finer detail. Whereas the first design was predominantly blue, the color changed to red - perhaps to echo the red of chevrons and other woven cloth devices found on an enlistedman's uniform. My research has alluded to that late in the war, the CPO badge further changed to match the pattern found on USMS buttons (1942-1954); I will post an image of this badge at a later date.
J. Tonelli in Visor Hats of the US Armed Forces incorrectly asserts that the illustrated hat badge was worn by USMS Warrant Officers; however, regulations of the time state that Warrant Officers wear the same devices as regular, commissioned officers. This is a commonly made mistake when attempting to devise a typology of hat devices for a relatively small organization with a small array of hat insignia.
Overall, the USMS only had a handful of CPOs and these were attached to USMS enrollment offices, training stations, officer schools and the US Merchant Marine Academy; CPO insignia was not issued to regular seamen who were matriculated from or were certified by the USMS. CPOs represented unlicensed seaman hired by the USMS skilled in the maritime industry with some seniority or specialized skills not satisfying the grade of Warrant Officer; it is useful to think of USMS CPOs as experienced Able Seamen (AB).

USMS CPO Hat badge, obverse.
This device was worn by Merchant Mariners attached to the US Maritime Commission involved in training duties; this badge eventually found its way to be only worn by senior unlicensed personnel (CPOs). This hat badge continued to be issued until stocks were depleted and eventually replaced by a badge of the same design - albeit in nickel (pre- and early war), and then replaced by the more familiar USMS CPO device. There is some speculation that the USMC/USMS CPO device was modeled after the US Coast Guard enlisted hat badge; however, it is worth remembering that the only badge this specific device resembles is the brass US Coast Guard Shore Installations hat badge - however the USCG badge went into production in 1942, half-decade after the production of the USMC/USMS badge.
The mystery of the design lies in the double-anchor and seal motif. If analyzed closely, the badge hearkens to the precursor agency of both the US Maritime Commission and US Coast Guard: the US Revenue Cutter Service. In this light, the anchor stock and flukes, and as well as the rope on the stock themselves echo the old seal. At the time of its creation, it was not stated in USMC regulations, but the uniforms and ranks of the soon-to-be-formed USMS were eventually codified to mirror that of the US Coast Guard. In time, in an effort to create an esprit de corps and the forging of an independent identity, the badge change to the second design.

USMS CPO Hat badge, reverse.

USMS CPO Hat badge, reverse (detail).
Note the curious "CO N.Y." hallmark - the complete "AE CO N.Y." mark is obscured by the post - this is of the American Emblem Company of Utica, New York. This firm produced a number of Merchant Marine and Maritime Service items during the Second World War, most notably the ubiquitous Merchant Mariner pin. In regard to this specific badge, NS Meyer produced a very similar insignia set for USMS officers using a similar central device. With the button and device change in 1942, AE Co. was no longer contracted to make USMS CPO badges; rather, the jobbing went to Coro.

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps

2010-03-10T12:56:00.018-05:00

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps (pre-1942)
Yellow-goldenrod thread.
Embroidered anchor on wool backing and mohair band.
Pre-to-early Second World War era; 1939-1942.

From the period following the First World War through the Depression, the U.S. Merchant Shipping industry was in a shambles: once profitable companies faltered and fell, ocean-going trade evaporated and even intercoastal shipping dried up. As a result, companies went bankrupt, very few ships were built and crews manning the ships dwindled to a very few. It is also during this period that U.S. maritime unions started operating in full swing, and involved themselves in vicious internecine fighting and bitter struggles with steamship carriers. Of those seamen that survived the wreckage, their efficiency and morale was at an all time low. With the passing of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, Congress abolished the ineffective U.S. Shipping Board and ushered in a new age for the U.S. Merchant Marine. The formerly under-regulated industry came under federal control and found itself subject to an array of programs and regulations. A few of salient features of the Act were the formulating and subsidizing the construction of U.S.-flag ships, as well as the formal training of men to man the ships.

With the passage of the Merchant Marine Act, the U.S. Maritime Commission came into being. The organization was ostensibly "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, and to aid in the national defense." It too, became embroiled in the old system of unions and steamship carrier falterings. To prop up the maritime industry, the USMC eventually bought out insolvent carriers thereby ringing whole shipping lines under federal control. With the storm clouds of war looming on the horizon, the Merchant Marine Act defined the entirety of the U.S. Merchant Marine as a military auxiliary in the event of war; furthermore, officers and crew of U.S.-flag ships could be pressed into the service of the U.S. Navy.

One of the most sweeping changes made by the act was that the Merchant Marine be "manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel." The Act did not offer any specifics for the USMC; but soon after, the Bland Amendment of June 1938 created the United States Maritime Service for "training of licensed and unlicensed merchant marine personnel." Shortly thereafter, Congress enacted the Naval Reserve Act bringing all officers of U.S. public vessels into the U.S. Navy reserve as well as cadets (now cadet-midshipmen) at Federally-funded state maritime and the soon-to-be-created Federal system. It is worth mentioning that the U.S. Maritime Commission's first report to Congress in January 1939 suggested the establishment of a federal cadet system augmenting the pool of graduates from state and private schools - moreover along with traditional sea-handling, the system should emphasize naval science. Congress acted quickly and a series of Maritime Service cadet schools opened in the Pacific, Gulf and Atlantic coasts. Navy, Coast Guard and USMS personnel trained the cadets, with licensure remaining in the hands of the Coast Guard. With the declaration of war, the training of the Merchant Marine Cadet Corps was transferred to the Coast Guard in February 1942 and then to the War Shipping Administration in Fall of the same year.

The presented hat badge dates from the period between the founding the the Federal Merchant Marine Corps just prior to the Second World War and the institution of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1942 through the creation of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Cadet Corps Regiment on Dedication Day, November1943. By early 1944, midshipman-cadets began wearing midshipman hat badges mirroring their colleagues at the U.S. Navy Academy in Anapolis. This hat badge is an embroidered anchor on a wool backing and mohair band; this specific example was removed from a hat and stored over the period of several years. Bands, such as this were an integral part of the hat to which it was affixed, and did not slide off easily as is the case with removable covers and bands of the present-day; hats were spot cleaned or taken to the cleaners. With the United States' formal entry into the war, the U.S. insignia industry servicing maritime and Naval concerns changed its means and modes of production. The older, elegant hat devices made of woven bullion and metallic thread were replaced by metal hat badges and other removable devices; although, those who had means and money continued to purchase and wear embroidered insignia. For cadets, who were rapidly moved through the federal training system, it was more expedient and cost-effective to use stamped metal devices and removable bands. This badge is the last of an era; from this point forward, stamped devices were and continue to be employed.

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps hat badge (pre-1942), obverse.
Period photographic evidence points to the fact that leading up to the Second World War and in the initial year of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's operation, cadet-midshipmen wore embroidered hat badges, rather supplanted by the more common stamped metal (brass, gold plated or gold fill). The presented item may be a custom piece - as the majority of cap devices of the period were comprised of metal thread (bullion) on wool backings - as opposed to silk or composite thread. It is important to remember that the USMMCC was quite small in the period leading up to the institution of the USMM school system and uniforms were not always that - uniform - young men on the Gulf coast did not always wear the same kit as their colleagues on the West or even the East coast.

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps hat badge (pre-1942), obverse detail.

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps cadet-midshipman, SUNY Maritime period (1939-1941).

U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps cadet-midshipmen, SUNY Maritime period (1939-1941).
The cadet-midshipmen are shown photographed in working khaki manning a monomy in Long Island Sound. Note that the young gentlemen are not wearing garrison hats, pointing to the fact that this photograph is pre-Regiment. The make of their combination hats is consistent with late-1930s and early Second World War construction. Their uniform shirts lack insignia of any sort, underscoring the same.

U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Officer

2010-03-08T11:02:00.020-05:00

U.S. Maritime Service Chief Petty Office hat badge (2nd design)
One piece construction. Seal, 25mm diameter; Anchor, 50mm length.
Coro (Cohn & Rosenberger) hallmark.
Anchor and device stamped brass, sterling plated (marked); red enamel band and shield.
Mid-to-post Second World War era; 1942-1947.

This is the second design of the USMS CPO hat badge; the first was worn from 1938, with the institution of the USMS training program, up until WSA control of the USMS in 1942. The former badge may be found in plain brass or gold, as well as plated silver - as is the case of this badge. The second design is always in silver plate, any other is a pattern or reproduction. The illustrated badge differs from the first with a few stylistic differences - a difference in shield configuration and the inclusion of a motto, and punctured anchor ring. The first employs blue enamel as opposed to red. Interestingly enough, the changed design did not stylistically match that of contemporary uniform coat, cap and shoulder board buttons and snaps which were altered at the same time as the hat badge.

A miniature of this device was authorized and manufactured for wear on overseas caps.

USMS CPO Hat badge, obverse.

USMS CPO Hat badge, reverse.
A close-up of the reverse details the Coro (Cohn & Rosenberger) hallmark as well as the Sterling denotation. Coro, as a corporate name came to be in 1943; however, the incuse hallmark "Coro" with a distinct curly-queue C in serif font dates to 1940 and underwent minor variations until 1945. Moreover, due to wartime metal shortages, Coro produced Sterling insignia items under Government contract from 1942-1947. With the aforementioned in mind, this hallmark adequately dates the device to the early-to-mid 1940s, contemporaneous with USMS insignia change.

USMS CPO Hat badge, production hub.
This hub is composed of hardened steel; of interest are the alignment pins used in the creation of dies. I have already written about production methods specifically outlining the purpose of a hub, here. If you visit the image's page on Flickr, and select "All Sizes", the original size can give you a better idea of the intricacy of design and even the parts of the hub that have been buffed and chiseled.

One reason that dies do not show up often in collections is that as dies wear out, they are taken out of production, defaced and melted down; hubs survive due to the fact that more than one master is required for die production. In terms of USMS hat insignia, hubs are few and far between as there were not a whole lot of insignia houses producing USMS devices.

This specific die was sourced from an estate in Rhode Island; which corresponds to the fact that this is perhaps indeed a Coro hub (see above). Prior to, during and following the Second World War, Coro had a large jewelry factory in Providence, Rhode Island. Thus far, I have only seen period USMS CPO badges with Coro hallmarks.

War Shipping Administration

2010-02-07T18:08:00.010-05:00

War Shipping Administration

War Shipping Administration officer hat badge
Two piece construction; 60mm (l) x 55mm (h).
No hallmarks.
Eagle and shield gold-filled; anchors gold-filled.
Circa Second World War era; 1943-45.

Logistics and control of the supply chain is a perennial thorn in the side of military planners. In the interwar period, the U.S.'s sea-borne commerce was handled by a handful of independent shipping companies and corporations. With the clouds of war looming over Europe, and the with country gripped by the Depression, the federal government created the U.S. Maritime Commission so as to provide stimulus to and a regulatory framework for U.S. maritime commerce; this was welcomed by industrialists as a protectionist measure. Of its many roles, the USMC was responsible for the training of men for service in the U.S. Merchant Marine, overseeing ship construction and the militarization of the U.S.-flag fleet in the event of war.

After Pearl Harbor and in the early days of 1942, by executive order President Roosevelt created the War Shipping Administration. In one stroke, the WSA seized all U.S.-flag merchant ships for wartime duty. Among other responsibilities, the fleet chartering functions of the U.S. Maritime Commission were transferred to the new agency; by mid-war, the WSA owned and operated or chartered 80% of all sea-going merchant vessels in the U.S., with the rest being owned or chartered by the U.S. Army and Navy. An estimated 90% of all military and essential cargo were carried in WSA ships; and the Administration's responsibilities extended to all aspects and phases of shipping. This agency worked closely with Merchant Marine unions, operators, the U.S. Army and Navy as well as with the British Ministry of War Transport to ensure logistical control of the maritime supply lines. Despite service in-fighting and other institutional set-backs, the WSA did fulfill its role as to maintain ever important seaborne logistics control.

The National Archives provides the following time line and other pertinent information:

Administrative History

Established: In the Office for Emergency Management by EO 9054, February 7, 1942, under authority of the First War Powers Act (55 Stat. 838), December 18, 1941.

Predecessor Agencies:

* Division of Emergency Shipping, Office of the General Director of Shipping
* U.S. Maritime Administration (Feb. 1941-Feb. 1942)

Functions: Acquired and operated U.S. ocean vessels except those of the armed services and the Office of Defense Transportation; trained merchant crews; and coordinated utilization of U.S. shipping.

Abolished: September 1, 1946, by the Naval Appropriations Act (60 Stat. 501), July 8, 1946.

Successor Agencies: U.S. Maritime Administration.

And regarding seized functions, HyperWar provides the following text culled from a WSA memorandum penned by Adm E. S. Land:

Under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, the United States Maritime Commission was established as an independent agency to direct and control all phases of overseas shipping and shipbuilding. It became apparent immediately when this Nation entered the war that a special agency to deal with the operational problems peculiar to war was necessary to supplement the Maritime Commission. That need brought about the creation of the War Shipping Administration on February 7, 1942, which took over from the Maritime Commission virtually all of the Commission's major statutory functions with the exception of shipbuilding. Thus WSA became the Government's ship operating agency and the Maritime Commission its shipbuilding agency.

It is important to remember that the WSA owned, operated and chartered sea-going vessels. The personnel manning these ships could be of several classes:

Mariners, licensed or unlicensed, union or non-union.
U.S. Maritime Service trained.
"Old salts", or mariners not federally but state trained.
Civil-service, civilian mariners.
Maritime shipping company employees.

The hat badge illustrated belonged to an employee of the WSA that worked aboard a WSA-owned and operated vessel. A bit of high-level and maritime culture is required to understand how this hat badge fits into the small constellation of sea-service and federal maritime insignia...

Since the WSA was not a uniformed service (but did have a uniformed component: the Maritime Service - which will be covered in the future), some individuals employed by the WSA proper could and did procure uniforms and insignia at their discretion. Those mariners who went to the various state maritime schools or the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, during the war, would be inducted into the U.S. Merchant Marine as an active or reserve officer - those individuals had the privilege of wearing U.S. Maritime Service insignia - as they still do today. However, in the early days of the war, not all officers aboard ship were graduates of said schools, and would wear uniforms in the fashion of the day depending upon their status: mate, engineering officer, master, &c. (along the lines of U.S. Coast Guard licensed positions). If in the employ of a company, they would wear the company's insignia. But, if purely in the employ of the WSA, they could wear whatever struck their fancy and within reason.

WSA officer hat badges (cap devices), usually fell along the the following lines; with the important indicator of looking very similar to the U.S. Navy hat badges, albeit with "a twist":

A stamped or silver federal eagle with enamels or painted shield in red, white and blue. Embroidered examples of the latter also exist (these share a symbology harkening to U.S.S.B. badges - which will be illustrated in a forthcoming post).
A stamped federal eagle and anchors all in gold.

These hat badges are few and far between given the relatively small number of WSA officers and the eventual manning of ships by freshly-minted officers from U.S.M.S. schools or existing shipping company crew members. The latter usually kept their existing insignia or defaced U.S.M.S insignia with a company flag - as illustrated in previous entries.

War Shipping Administration officer
Hat badge, obverse.
This is ostensibly composed of components from the officer hat badges of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Public Health Service (anchors and eagle-shield, respectively). One might proffer a claim of incongruity by calling attention to the fact that the eagle is without the tell-tale "cow lick" on its crown which many use to "date" some U.S.N. commissioned officer hat badges. However, through careful examination of the toning patterns of the badge itself, the overall patina is consistent with sterling and gold-plated badges from the 1940s; and this die variation was very much in use at mid-war by Vanguard. On a stylistic note, the other encountered variation of enamels and painted shields fell into disuse or non-manufacture over the span of two years after the entry of the United States into the Second World War. The reason for this change may be that uniform shops in the major WSA embarkation ports ran out of stock and offered the illustrated alternative to move existing stock. And, since the WSA was without uniform regulations, these badges were more than likely purchased by an officer eager to adorn his cap with something distinctive.

War Shipping Administration officer
Hat badge, reverse.
Note the absence of any hallmarks of any sort; the eagle of of the usual Vanguard variety and anchors of Viking in design.

War Shipping Administration officer
Hat badge, reverse bolt detail.
The slight lozenge shaped brass keeper bolt is of contemporary issue.

U.S. Navy commissioned officer

2010-01-31T18:32:00.023-05:00

U.S. Navy commissioned officer hat badge, pre-1941,

U.S. Navy commissioned officer hat badge, pre-1941
Two piece construction; 65mm (l) x 55mm (h).
H & H (Hilborn & Hamburg) hallmark on eagle wing. Viking hallmark on anchor.
Eagle and shield sterling (marked); anchor gold-filled (1/10 14K GF).
Circa pre-Second World War era; late 1930s.

Following the Revolutionary War and dissolution of the Articles of Confederation, the early American republic decidedly wished to break with the aristocratic traditions of old Europe - if not in practice, then in symbolic language. Crowns were removed from coinage, royal was dropped from place names, and liberty became the byword of the era. With the birth the Federal government, the American bald eagle emblazoned with a shield representative of the first thirteen states, and clutching arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other - not so subtle visual metaphors of both the defense and peace-providing nature of the young republic - cropped up on government seals and on military uniform buttons. Despite the desire to promote a democratic and egalitarian society, removing holdovers of rank titles and uniform clothing of a recent hierarchical and aristocratic past from the military proved exceedingly difficult - tradition dies hard, even when trying to supplant it with another (case and point: it was only after numerous bureaucratic and social changes wherein the naval rank of Admiral was finally allowed decades after independence).

The Navy, in particular, was (and still is) an organization requiring strict discipline and order in its ranks. Reticence to ape European traditions spurred the U.S. Navy to create its own socially relevant native American symbols of rank and hierarchy. Nevertheless, it fell in line with the prevailing tradition of leaves and lace. One of the more curious phenomenon illustrating this is the permutations that U.S. Navy officer's hat badge has gone through over time; these also offer insight as to contemporary concerns of the U.S. Navy establishment and can be used to date items to a specific time period. Early on, the cap device denoted rank or rate through color and arrangement of woven images of live oak leaves, acorns, olive branches and other devices such as old-English letters. These show that in the period immediately preceding the Civil War, concern revolved around an officer's job aboard ship: Navy uniform regulations outlined differences in line or specialties of officers, e.g. engineers, surgeons, chaplains or deck. With the close of the Civil War, Federalism was the rule in the governance of the United States, and the strength of the Union was represented even more so than before on naval insignia. The elaborate differences once found on commissioned officers headgear gave way to an elegant and uniform means of identification: an eagle-anchor device worn on a uniform cap centered above the visor. This device served as a potent visual statement of how officers were in the service of the government, and not merely members of a ship - those indicators found themselves on the sleeve and epaulets. Plates in the 1869 regulations illustrated a gaunt republican eagle facing the wearer's left and surmounting a large United States shield in silver with embroidered gold anchors underneath. A definitive statement on the device's construction was published in 1889; afterward it went through small manufacturer design changes until the publication of the Uniform Regulations of May 13, 1941. Previously, as stated before, the eagle faced to the left whereas the new regulations stated that the eagle face right. A memorandum from the Director of Naval History to Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe of 13 December 1963 states that:

The shift of the eagle's aspect to right-facing from left-facing is logical from the perspective of heraldic tradition, since the right side (dexter) is the honor side of the shield and the left side (sinister) indicates dishonor or illegitimacy.

I am sure the original configuration was nothing that serious. It was most probably due to a manufacturer creating a product, it selling at the right price and the design continuing to be used without anyone thinking about the possible sinister repercussions or undertones. I imagine the subject was brought up at a garden party and later memos were typed and decisions were made...

The stamped metal eagle accompanying this entry is from the period immediately preceding the entry of the United States into the Second World War; it is also during this period that Hilborn-Hamburger began hallmarking insignia with the distinctive H-H in a stylized eagle-star device; and also when Viking began producing anchors for officers' insignia. Unlike other times of earlier uniform change, personnel of Navy during mid-twentieth century quickly adopted insignia as dictated by new regulations and few sailors found themselves contrary to regulation. This eagle was not worn during the war; it found its way into a cigar box and was secreted away for decades. Although, regarding the expedient change of insignia... apparently flag officers were exempt or just very slow to change as seen in these LIFE snippets from 1941 and 1942:

Adm. King is detailed on 24 November, 1941 (p 92).

J. Auld is curious about the hat badge on 15 December, 1941 (pg 2).

Adm. Leahy apparently hasn't updated his wardrobe by 28 September, 1941 (cover).

Some design notes: this hat badge is convex and has two screw posts; one small, behind the eagle's breast, and another, larger holding the shield and anchors together. Toward mid-war, the former screw all but disappeared and was replaced by two pins near the wing tips - as can be discerned here. This eagle's body is similar in design to the U.S. Army Transportation Corps - Water Division hat badge which appeared in 1944. The aforementioned eagle was almost exclusively manufactured by Gemsco. This anchor design continued to be employed until the Korean War by jewelers and private-purchase insignia houses.

References:
James C. Tily, The Uniforms of the United States Navy.
Cranbury, NJ: Thomas Yoseloff, 1964.

U.S. Navy commissioned officer.
Hat badge, obverse.

U.S. Navy commissioned officer.
Hat badge, reverse.

U.S. Navy commissioned officer.
Hat badge, reverse detail.
Some details of note are the notches on the shield for the flush placement of the anchor stock and chain, and the presence of the convex washer. Later varieties lack notches, and the anchors are placed behind the eagle-shield device; at times slightly bending the anchors. The washer has also changed through time, and has become flat - which it is at present.

U.S. Navy commissioned officer.
Hat badge, reverse hallmark detail.
Note the H-H hallmark on the reverse of the right wing and Sterling on the left. The Viking hallmark is on the left anchor stock; in later designs, Viking placed hallmarks on the anchor shank and sometime on the arms. I have yet to determine an adequate chronology for Viking hallmark placement.

U.S. Navy Technician

2009-12-06T10:56:00.050-05:00

USN Technician hat badge & miniature device.
Cast brass; motto: U.S. TECHNICIAN.
1 screw, 1 non-rotating point.
37mm x 48mm (LxH).
manu: Officer's Equipment Co. Madison, NJ.
mini device: 15mm x 19mm.
Circa Second World War.

With the onset of the Second World War the technologies involved in weapon creation oftentimes surpassed the basic training of sailors, soldiers and their commanding officers. The technical advancements in aviation, computers and radar required technical personnel of defense industry companies that created these new weapons of war to advise and train their military customers. The Navy, keen on maintaining hierarchical relationships and following Geneva Convention rules, and to insure the clear identification of non-combatants in its midst, drew up regulations for U.S. Navy Technician uniforms and devices. These regulations, for the most part, remain on the books and can be found buried in U.S. Navy and U.S. Marines uniform regulations.

Joseph Tonelli's book, Visor hats of the United States Armed Forces: 1930-1950 illustrates some of the exquisite headgear worn by USN Technicians during the Second World War. These hats have elaborate devices composed of a silver embroidered spread eagle. It faces dexter with a stylized wrench clutched in the left claw and an olive branch in the right. The lettering "U.S. TECHNICIAN" is centered on a brass or gold-plate device on the eagle's chest. The hat's chin-strap changed from gilt to black-braid at the end of the war. The last hat Tonelli details on page 198 is the one in current use.

U.S. Navy Technicians are mandated to only wear uniforms in forward combat areas and during travel to and from such areas outside of the continental United States (or, on any other occasion as deemed fit by the Chief of Naval Operations). This is to establish their official status as a non-combatant.

U.S. Navy OPNAV INSTRUCTION 5720.3D § 9 states thus:

Articles of Uniform. The articles of uniform shall be the same as those prescribed for a commissioned naval officer except that no distinctive rank, corps device, or other naval insignia shall be worn. Plain buttons of the same size and color prescribed for naval officer’s uniforms shall be worn on coats. Female technicians shall wear either the garrison cap or beret; combination hat is not authorized.

Breast Insignia. An embroidered badge 3¼ inches square, consisting of a spread eagle, facing dexter; the left claw of the eagle shall be shown clutching a group of tools and the right claw an olive branch; immediately underneath the eagle shall be the letters: U.S. TECHNICIAN. The background of the badge shall be the same color as the coat/jacket or shirt, with the design and lettering white on blue coats and blue on other coats/jackets and khaki shirts. The breast insignia shall be worn on the left breast pocket of coats and khaki shirts for male technicians. The breast insignia shall be worn above the left breast pocket flap of the jacket (Service Dress Blue), for female technicians.

Cap insignia for male technicians. A gilt badge 1¼ inches wide by 1-7/8 inches high bearing the inscription U.S. TECHNICIAN. Worn on the band of the combination cap with plain black chin strap and plain gilt buttons. Cap insignia for garrison cap (male and female technicians) and beret (female technicians). A gilt pin 5/8-inch wide by ¾-inch high bearing the inscription U.S. TECHNICIAN. Worn on the left side of the garrison cap 2 inches from the front edge and 1½ inches from the bottom edge of the cap when the garrison cap is prescribed for wear by naval officers. For female technicians, worn on the beret, aligned approximately above the left eye.

Collar insignia. A gilt pin 5/8-inch wide by ¾-inch high bearing the inscription U.S. TECHNICIAN. Worn on both sides of the collar of the khaki shirt with the center of the insignia 1 inch from the front edge and 1 inch below the upper edge of the collar for male technicians. Worn on the white shirt collar with the center of the insignia 2 inches from the fold line at top of collar and ¾-inch from the forward edge of collar, for female technicians.

The U.S. Marine Corps has similar directives, however without the "combination hat" and the stipulation that anyone wearing a Marine Corps uniform must abide by USMC grooming standards.

These directives are still in effect. In terms of the insignia that accompany this entry, they were manufactured prior to the Korean War - as evident by the lack of Institute of Heraldry (IOH) numbers and the wartime keeper screw bolt. Dondero is presently the only supplier of collar insignia to the USMC; I am unsure about the hat badge.

References:
Marine Corps Order P12304.1, 25 October, 1993
Contractor Engineering and Technical Services Personnel Manual.

Marine Corps Order P1020.34G MCUB, 31 March 2003.
Paragraph 8005, Civilians Serving With Marine Corps Units.

Office of The Chief of Naval Operations OP-09B23T, 1 June, 1994
U.S. Department of Defense Form DOD-OPNAVINST-5720-3D, § 9.

Nicole A. Lavine. "Tactical Safety Specialist diffuse potential hazards" in Observation Post. Twentynine Palms, California: 26 January 2007, p. A5.

Joseph J. Tonelli. Visor hats of the United States Armed Forces: 1930-1950. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publicartions, 2003.

USN Technician
Hat badge & miniature device; reverse, hall mark and screw post detail.

USN Technician.
U.S. Navy officers' hat with U.S. Technician insignia
manu: Berkshire, New York, NY.
Circa Early Second World War
From the collection of Bill Rentz.

This khaki covered hat would have been worn with the jacket as detailed below. The hat itself has an early wartime Berkshire logo, and is the standard U.S. Navy officer model; the owner would have had to privately purchase the embroidered insignia. The rich embroidery is worth mentioning; it is speculated that the work was done in Great Britain - however, these findings are inconclusive.

Do note the U.S. Navy side buttons holding the chin strap - which is of the same width as those found on standard U.S. Navy officer hat.

USN Technician.
Breast cloth badge; obverse & reverse.
Circa Second World War.

As previously mentioned, a great majority of U.S. Navy Technicians worked in the field of RADAR & ASDIC (SONAR), computational devices and propulsion systems newly adopted by the U.S. Navy over the course of the Second World War.

However, researchers and collectors oftentimes come across "emergency rates" or other insignia worn by sailors during this period who worked with the same technologies. The lower rates were hand-picked as evidenced by special aptitude during seamen training. The others were directly recruited by the U.S. Navy based upon prior civilian experience or training - they often became Petty Officer First Class or Chief Petty Officer after having completed boot camp; at the time, these CPOs were derisively called "Slick Sleeve Chiefs" due to the lack of service hash-marks. Directly-inducted Warrant Officers and newly-minted junior officers out of V-7 training with specialized knowledge were placed into special trade and officer corps groups (former and later). However, U.S. Technicians were another class entirely, they "belonged" to their corporations, had no military training and were "lent" for the duration to train or advise the later, repair or install their equipment or simply to operate it.

USN Technician.
Breast cloth badge; obverse.
From the collection of David Collar.

Note: The eagle is clutching arrows as opposed to a wrench.

USN Technician.
Khaki Coat
circa Second World War

Despite regulations stating otherwise, this belted khaki coat has U.S. Navy officer gold buttons. The main difference between this jacket and its naval and maritime counterparts is the fact that it lacks loops for shoulder boards. It was also an expediently tailored piece as it not only lacks an interior liner, but also interior pockets - this common to other period pieces. The buttons are removable for coat cleaning in ship's laundry.

Note: The eagle is clutching a wrench (of sorts) and a hammer.

USAAF Technician.
Silver plate; motto: U.S. TECHNICIAN.
Silver plate; lettering: A.S.C..
device: 15mm x 19mm.
Reverse: non-rotating points.
manu: no hallmarks or silver content noted.
Circa Second World War through 1947 (n.b. ASC became AMC in Dec. 1947).
from the collection of Joe Weingarten.

Rarely seen, these silver collar devices were worn by civilian technicians attached to the U.S. Army Air Forces Air Service Command at installations such as Wright Field - from 1948, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. These technicians began working at Wright-Patterson from the Second World War through the Vietnam war when they were replaced by civilian civil service employees of the U.S. Air Force Material Command. They performed tasks much like their U.S. Navy counterparts; if such insignia is still worn or used, I am unaware.

Korean War Period, U.S.A.F. Technician shirt patch.

More on the USAAFASC activities at Wright-Patterson, may be found here.

Massachussetts Maritime Academy

2009-11-22T20:44:00.014-05:00

mma cadet hat badge.

The late 1800s saw a flurry of state nautical school openings with funds provided by U.S. Congress. One of them, the Massachusetts Maritime Academy began its life as the Massachusetts Nautical Training School in 1891. In 1913, along with training vessel and curriculum changes, its the name changed to the Massachusetts Nautical School. And, along with its move to Hyannis from Boston in 1942, its name changed its present form.

mma circa 1942.

The Second World War saw many changes in the structure of MMA corps of cadets. Like other state and federal maritime schools and academies, cadets were ushered into a rush program of 16-18 months from matriculation to graduation. America's entry into the war called for an increased number of men to serve on the many convoy ships, merchantmen and ocean-going vessels either under construction or underway. The US Navy instituted the v-12 program whereby to increase the number of young men joining the ranks of the Navy's officer corps.

With each change in name, MMA's cadet insignia changed, with the exception of uniform buttons. The buttons depict the central device of seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. MMA's hat and uniform insignia have mirrored those of the U.S. Naval Academy, albeit with hat badges having "M.N.T.S." and "M.N.S." above the anchor; if you look at this page, you can see an example of the later. In the 1940s until the present, MMA has used insignia indistinct from the USNA - including the abandonment of woven for metal anchor devices on hats. It is the aforementioned indistinct insignia that has prompted this entry and a means for sleuthing an insigne's period.

mma cadet insignia group.

When I had originally purchased this grouping, I was told that all items are from the United States Naval Academy and from the Second World War. I looked a bit closer and noticed the curious buttons. After examining the shoulder boards and corresponding rank ladders - those of a midshipman battalion lieutenant (junior grade) - I knew spot-on that the insignia was from the MMA and from the cited period.

Here are my meandering notes:
* Interestingly, unlike USNA boards, the stars are not metal, rather woven. The shoulder boards came from a private uniform shop, "Boston Uniform Co." - it was located on 66 Chelsea St. in Charlestown, Massachusetts. The company last appeared in public records in 1958. But! Embroidered shoulder boards were not worn in the 1950s.

* The ladders are plainly marked with the Hilborn-Hamburger manufacturer's mark - "H-H" within a stylized eagle; such a mark was used on H-H insignia prior to the mid-50s. The fact that the insignia is clutch back - as opposed to pin - means that it was issued mid-war onward.

* The buttons are brass, and were manufactured by Waterbury Button Co. in Connecticut. Waterbury now has its archive online; however my specific button was not present - in this case a useful tool proved not so.

* Regarding the anchor devices: in a MMA setting, these would specify the class of wearer. Each collar insigne is unmarked. And, of the many examples present (4 pairs), they are either brass or gold-plated - you can still see the Brasso residue on a pair.

* A blacklight test would show that the cap-band is not made of synthetics, but of Mohair; the band stitching corresponds to 1940s patterns. Mohair has a distinct warp and weft; the band has the correct texture for the period.

If I hadn't the other items alongside the cap badge, I would have been hard-pressed to determine the correct era and I would have mis-identified the piece as being merely a Navy ROTC or perhaps USNA hat badge. And such is the joy of collecting.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Cadet hat badge, reverse.
Threaded screw and one non-rotating point (bent).
Unmarked, cast. Gold metal plate over white metal.
Circa Second World War.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Shoulder boards.
Cadet/Midshipman Battalion Lieutenant (Junior Grade).
Wool over hard board, gold bullion woven star and rank stripes.
Brass fastener with Commonwealth of Massachusetts seal.
Manufacturer: Boston Uniform Co., Charlestown, Mass.
Circa Second World War.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Collar insignia, class rank anchors.
Three examples, gold plate and brass.
Clutch-back.
Manufacturer: no mark.
Circa Second World War.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Collar insignia, rank ladder reverse.
Cadet/Midshipman Battalion Lieutenant (Junior Grade).
Gold plate.
Clutch-back.
Manufacturer: encuse Hilborn-Hamburger mark (H-H in stylized eagle)
Circa Second World War.

Please see: Hilborn-Hamburger maker's mark on reverse of MMA rank ladder for detail.

Massachusetts Maritime Academy.
Reverse hat band, stitching detail.
Band: Mohair. Hat screw post holes, worn with stitching.
Badge plate: Leather and wool.
Circa Second World War.

On Vacation

2009-10-23T14:33:00.003-04:00

Loyal readers:

I shall return on 11 November.

In case you're curious about the header image, that is the Liberian Tanker Ocean Eagle sinking in the harbor off of San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 March 1968.

NOAA Report

Office of Naval Research Oceanic Biology Program Report

The accident was devastating to local ecosystems as it was the most severe oil spill experienced in U.S. territorial waters up to that time; in its wake came improved methods for containing spills and improved tanker safety practices.

I have gone through various U.S. government publications, however they are careful to remove references to owners and the name of the ship's captain. If anyone might know of the shipping company that manned the ship at the time of the accident, I would be keen to obtain their hat badge.

American-Hawaiian Steamship Company

2009-10-23T10:28:00.017-04:00

American-Hawaiian Steamship Company,

American-Hawaiian SS Co. hat badge.

Faint H & H (Hilborn & Hamburg) hallmark on eagle wing. Gemsco hallmark on flag. Eagle and shield sterling plate over copper; wreath brass/gold-plate. Second World War era.

badge: 60mm x 65mm
flag: 25mm x 22mm

As follows is an essay on the history of American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. Collecting the data on this specific company is somewhat responsible for the prolonged hiatus in blog postings. I hope that the history behind the badge warrants the absence of images. More images will follow in a couple of weeks... I'm going on vacation for a spell.

American-Hawaiian Steamship Company (A-H SS Co.), 1899-1956.

The story of American-Hawaiian Steamship Company mirrors the fates of several large steamship houses in the United States: scramble for capital, flowering of activity, failed business models, take-over by a large conglomerate and final dissolution. A-H SS Co. is unique in the fact that at one point it had the largest U.S.-flag merchant fleet and then dwindled to nothing.

A-H SS Co. was engaged in intercoastal (U.S. Atlantic-to-U.S. Pacific coast) and foreign trade - although, as it name implied, it originally provided the majority of the steamship freight service between the mainland United States and the Hawaiian Islands. After the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States on 7 July 1898, George S. Dearborn, who owned a fleet of sailing vessels, decided to establish a modern steamship service between New York and Hawaii. In order to finance this venture, he sold his fleet of sailing ships and raised additional capital from investors - notably his brother-in-law, Lewis Henry Lapham. Almost a year later, on 7 March 1899, Dearborn organized the American-Hawaiian Steamship Company. Dearborn served as president of the company, with Captain William D. Burnham as general manager - Dearborn was president until his death in 1920; Burnham held his appointed post until 1914.

Immediately after incorporation, A-H SS Co. ordered new steamships from the local New York and New Jersey shipyards, with Dearborn securing contracts to bring sugar to the U.S. mainland from the Big Five (the main business conglomerates in the islands). Service was to begin in 1900, however A-H SS Co. found its ships requistioned by the U.S. Navy for emergency duty to counter the Boxer Rebellion in China. Only in January 1901 did the promised service begin. For the next 14 years, under the protective umbrella of U.S. cabotage laws, the relationship that A-H had forged with the Big Five proved mutually beneficial and was source of prosperity to the company's U.S.-flag ships.

Of the of several innovations A-H SS Co. ushered into the steamship trade, starting with their first voyage, A-H SS Co. steamships used the Straits of Magellan rather than the longer route followed by sailing vessels around Cape Horn. A problem that faced steamships in the long voyage from New York to Hawaii was the logistic problem of coaling. Although Chile was a natural stop off point for re-supply, Chilean coal was of low-quality and quickly exhausted. This very problem vexed the great powers of the period, and colonial history is rife with seemingly far-flung islands annexed for the very purpose of servicing navies. A-H SS Co. did not have the luxury of arms, therefore resorted innovation. Alternatively, A-H SS Co. supported the efforts of Valdemar Frederick Lassoe, its chief engineer, to develop an oil burner for the company's steamships. The oil burner was first fitted in the S.S. Nebraskan, which completed its first voyage from the Pacific to New York in 1904; the results so impressed the U.S. Navy that it launched a program to convert warships from coal to oil.

In January 1907 A-H SS Co. took advantage of the opening of the Tehuantepec Railroad across Mexico to divide its ships into two fleets: one operated on the Pacific Ocean, while the other fleet handled the cargo on the Atlantic between New York and Tehuantepec. This arrangement lasted until 1914, when revolutionary turmoil in Mexico shut down the Tehuantepec Railroad; while the opening of the Panama Canal on 15 August 1914 provided an economical alternative. However, landslides closed the Panama Canal between 13 September 1915 and 15 April 1916, thus forcing A-H SS Co. to use the Straits of Magellan one last time - albeit under oil power.

The company's heyday was in this early period. With its offices at 8 Bridge Street Maritime Building in New York, A-H SS Co. steamers sailed from the renovated Pier 56, Bush Terminal, South Brooklyn, every six days laden with freight for Pacific Coast Ports and the Hawaiian Islands. Through bills of lading, cargo was accepted for Puerto Mexico and all points along the Tehuantepec National Railway, Vera Cruz & Isthmus Railway, Pan-American Railway and ports along the west coast of Mexico and Central America. From Hawaii and San Francisco, steamers left for New York every twelve days. The company used San Francisco and Puget Sound as a way station for freight destined for Vera Cruz and New York. Commerce was good.

The positioning of the company in the Hawaiian trade could not have been more secure, yet when the First World War began in 1914, Dearborn gradually succumbed to the temptation of chartering out most of his fleet in order to profit from the record-high freight rates in the North Atlantic. In 1916 A-H SS Co. announced that it would suspend handling the sugar crop of the Islands; not surprisingly the Big Five and the Territorial Government of Hawaii felt betrayed. As a reprisal, the Big Five vowed that A-H SS Co. would never be able to return. Henceforth, the Matson Navigation Company, enjoying the full support of the Big Five, emerged as the principal ocean carrier of the Islands. Once the wartime profits evaporated, A-H SS Co. realized it had foolishly abandoned long-term stability for the sake of short-term gains - the company did keep its original name, in the hope of returning one day to Hawaii, but more as a reminder of the prosperous days when it had been the largest U.S.-flag merchant fleet.

In 1920, after the government returned the vessels requisitioned during the war, A-H SS Co. decided to dedicate its fleet in intercoastal trade, mainly between New York and California. After Dearborn died on 28 May 1920, W. Averell Harriman became the principal stockholder of the company and assigned the management of the company to his United American Lines; all of this he affected in April 1920. The attempted merger proved more complex than expected, and soon Harriman realized that the financially troubled A-H SS Co. required its own separate organization, and to that end he appointed Cary W. Cook as its president on 20 March 1923. As a condition for accepting the job, Cook had specified that the company's headquarters be moved from new York City to San Francisco - not only because this was where he lived, but also because he felt the future of the company was in the Pacific. Cook put A-H SS Co. back on solid footing and also began the negotiations with the Grace Line - which was keen to sell its six vessels on the unprofitable intercoastal service. The purchase was concluded in June 1925 by Roger D. Lapham, who succeeded Cook as president that same month. The intercoastal route sailed every five days. As a further step to consolidate A-H SS Co. position as the leading intercoastal carrier, Lapham acquired one of its competitors, the Williams Line, in early 1929.

Unfortunately, the intercoastal trade was proving to be rather unstable and subject to sharp rate wars, so Lapham correctly concluded that the company needed to enter into other trade routes. His most important move was the creation of the Oceanic & Oriental Navigation Company in 1928 to take over a line of U.S. Shipping Board vessels (USSB); A-H SS Co. and Matson each had a 50% stake in the venture, with Matson managing the government ships on the the Australia/New Zealand route, and A-H SS Co. managing those sailing to China, Indochina, Japan and the Philippines. When the Great Depression struck, A-H SS Co. was in an especially difficult state as the intercoastal trade so closely reflected the collapse of the American economy; Lapham considered a merger with the Dollar Line in 1930, but the negotiators failed to find a satisfactory arrangement. Ever the opportunist, in 1936, did Lapham purchase four steamers from the Dollar Line for A-H SS Co. as Dollar was desperately trying to remain solvent and not slip into bankruptcy.

The U.S. government requisitioned the ships of A-H SS Co. and of all other lines during Second World War. The company received a War Shipping Pennant in 1944 with four stars - "4 Star Companies" were assigned anywhere from 75-100 vessels of Victory Fleet during the Second World War. Once the war was over, the company did not want the surviving ships back, which in any case were overage, and instead preferred to bareboat charter government vessels for the intercoastal trade and for a service to the Far East, at least until the post war shipping situation became clearer. After the war, these cast-off ships ended up as troopships for the MSTS or found service in the U.S. Navy. Despite not wishing to have its assets returned, A-H SS Co. did engage in litigation to recoup perceived losses at the hands of the U.S. Government. A particularly visible case was of the Alaskan, the Federal Courts upheld the Government's payment to A-H SS Co., claiming the A-H SS Co. was attempting to profit from war.

With the ascension of Roger Lapham's son, Lewis A. Lapham, because the president of the company in 1947, his first action was to move the headquarters back to New York City from San Francisco. The company was wisely keeping its options open, but the Korean War panicked A-H SS Co. into buying six surplus ships on the mistaken assumption that high freight rates would continue indefinitely (obviously lessons were not learned from previous of the same sort). The ships had barely been brought when the intercoastal service took a downward plunge, and with each voyage piling up losses, the company had no choice but to suspend the intercoastal service in March 1953. For all intents and purposes, A-H SS Co. was no longer sailing.

The question of what to do with the idle fleet vexed the stockholders, who reached the conclusion that the hope left was to shift to a foreign flag of convenience. Because the company had exclusively operated under the U.S. flag, the stockholders decided to bring in as an investor the billionaire Daniel Ludwig, whose experience with foreign-flag operations was renowned. Ludwig decided to use the company for his own plans, and in 1955, after a bitter takeover battle, he gained full control and sold off the ships and most of the assets of A-H SS Co., whose steamship career ended at this point.

Ludwig, however, for purposes of tax advantages, kept A-H SS Co. as a paper company and involved it in real estate ventures. For the next ten years the company became embroiled in sundry schemes: first to build Roll-On/Roll-Off vessels, then container ships and finally nuclear-powered vessels. By 1968 the last of these schemes had failed, and Ludwig proceeded to liquidate A-H SS Co. as a first step toward making an extremely lucrative deal with Sea-Land.

Principal Executives
George S. Dearborn :1899-1920
William D. Burnham : 1899-1914
Cary W. Cook : 1923-1925
Roger D. Lapham : 1925-1944
John E. Cushing : 1938-1947
Edward P. Farley : 1944-1955
Lewis A. Lapham : 1947-1953

House Flag:
The A-H SS Co. house flag first appeared in publications in 1926; the flag was simply the white initials A-H on a blue field. After the takeover, the flag was never flown again as American-Hawaiian Steamship Company became a paper company; and in the 1970s nevermore.

References:
Thomas C. Cochran and Ray Ginger, "The American-Hawaiian Steamship Company, 1899-1919," Business History Review (Boston: The President and Fellows of Harvard College) 28 (December 1954): 342-365

Rene De La Pedraja, Rise and Decline of U.S. Merchant Shipping in the Twentieth Century (Twayne's Evolution of Modern Business Series). New York: Twayne, 1992.

Penton Publishers, Blue Book of American Shipping (17th Ed.). New York, New York: Penton Publishers, 1913. pp. 315, 324.

New York Times, 26 November 1948, 28 February 1953.

Pacific Marine Review, November 1926.

Jerry Shields, The Invisible Billionaire: Daniel Ludwig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986.

War Shipping Administration, PR 2029. 24 September, 1944.

F. J. N. Wedge, Brown’s Flags and Funnels. Brown, Son & Ferguson: Glasgow, 1926.

Lloyd's, Lloyd's House Flags and Funnels. Lloyds: London, 1912.
Facsimile edition available here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lloyds-house-flags-and-funnels-1912/8504627

Legal cases:
American-Hawaiian Steamship Co. v. United States. the Alaskan
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit. - 191 F.2d 26
Argued May 8, 1951 Decided August 13, 1951

Marvyn Gould, Executor of the Estate of J. Donald Rogasner,et al., Appellants in No. 75-1338. v. American-Hawaiian Steamship Company et al., Cross-appellants
United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. - 535 F.2d 761
Argued Oct. 3, 1975.Decided April 8, 1976

American President Lines wool hat badge

2009-09-20T19:46:00.008-04:00

american president lines

American President Lines wool hat badge

Gemsco hallmark on flag.
Wool backing and wreath of gold bullion thread.
House flag, enamel with gold fill.
Second World War era.

badge: 70mm x 50mm
flag: 25mm x 22mm

As noted in a previous post, shipping companies' ships were appropriated for the duration of the war with seamen and officers militarized. This is an example of the cited officers' badge of wool backing.

Some have subtly speculated that wool backed badges without an eagle (with an eagle, such hats are known as "high pressure" hats) were worn by warrant officers or chief petty officers. Whereas, the truth of the matter is that ships appropriated by the Maritime Service and run by the shipping companies by their own personnel were not as rigid in uniform distinctions between grades of officers; in fact, shipping companies did not use a rating scale: officers were ranked according to seniority and responsibilty (and licensure if in the Maritime Service proper). For example, seamen's documents from after the war, and belonging to sailors on MSTS ships, showed a corresponding rank and rate, as such things did not exist in the Merchant Marine. As for officers aboard American President Line ships, their uniforms were prescribed by their company, and any hats and devices, and reefer jackets and cuff braid were oftentimes custom made and personal purchases. This particular device came from S. Appel & Co, a uniform company that had shops in both New York and Miami.

American President Lines
House Flag.
Woven cotton and canvas, no synthetics; attached to manila rope.
Flag, 4 x 6 feet
Circa Second World War.

Shipboard Organization and Stewards

2009-09-12T14:40:00.030-04:00

united states lines.

The opening chapter of the fifth edition of The Blue Jacket's Manual United States Navy (1917), devotes some 28 pages on the subject of "Discipline and Duty." Afterward, the first section of the book meanders into opportunities of specialization, courts-martial and customs. Only in the second and third sections are seamanship topics covered. The emphasis of the first section of the book underscores the fact that the smooth functioning of a man-of-war depends upon order, hierarchy, and the clear indication and compartmentalization of purpose; the same is also true to some extent on merchantmen.

The Commanding Officer is the head of the ship; all officers and seamen report to him. Just as a ship is compartmentalized, so is its hierarchy. Officers have rank and specialty; each carrying with it a certain grade of responsibility - sometimes mirroring ability and time in the service. In the U.S. Navy there is a small constellation officer types: line, restricted line, limited duty, corps and warrant. Positions among seamen (ratings in British parlance and enlisted in the United States) are known by "pay grade" or rank; and "rate" or field of specialty. Enlisted sailors may be: recruits, seamen, petty and chief petty officers. There are also cadets: midshipmen at the Naval Academy, Navy ROTC midshipmen and individuals in Officer Candidate School (aviation or otherwise). Merchant navies mirror, to the most extent, these relationships among personnel, although not as elaborate or seemingly baroque.

All of these sailors find themselves arrayed in various divisions and departments. For example, a merchantman or U.S. Liberty Ship during the Second World war usually held these Departments and rates:

Master: Commanding Officer and Purser (who doubled as Pharmacist)
Deck: Chief Officer, 2nd Officer, 3rd Officer, 3rd Junior Officer, Deck Cadet, Boatswain, Carpenter, Able Seaman (6), Ordinary Seaman (3)
Radio: Radio Operator, Jr. Radio Operator
Engine: Chief Engineer, 1st Asst. Engineer, 2nd Asst. Engineer, 3rd Asst. Engineer, Deck Engineer, Engine Cadet, Oiler (3), Watertender (3), Fireman/Stoker (3), Wiper (3)
Steward's: Chief Steward, 1st Cook, 2nd Cook & Baker, Galley Utilityman, Messman (4)

Over time, and especially during the late 19th and early 20th century, the British, German and American navies developed systematic indicators of personal shipboard position. These found manifestation in cuff lace, buttons, badges and various devices. The British lead the way in defining this symbolic language and shipboard organization; the United States followed, reaching full elaboration in the period preceding the Second World War. Both the U.S. and British navies relegated rate to the arm; the US Government marine - comprising of the Coast Guard , Coast and Geodetic Survey, Public Health Service and Maritime Service - followed the lead of the U.S. Navy. Interestingly, the US Army Transport Service, and not the US Maritime Service nor the U.S. Navy provided its Petty and Chief Petty Officers with hats designating rate. In the latter two services, rate resided on sleeve or collar; it is an academic exercise for the reader to determine what is most important to the various services - shipboard trade or rank.

Woven or stamped, as follows is a cursory list of some common devices: stars and fouled anchors for deck officers and boatswains carpenter's rules and axes for ship's carpenters quills and keys for clerks and yeomen, globes for electricians, sparks for wireless (radio) operators, propellers or cogs for engineers and machinists, ship's wheels for helmsmen, batons and swords for masters-at-arms, and increscent (a crescent moon with the points facing dexter) for stewards and commissary personnel. The latter insignia have the unique distinction of being silver in color for stewards in almost all foreign and merchant navies, and in the U.S Army Transport Service - I will return to this later.

Silver and gold feature prominently in not only in maritime rank insignia, but in all U.S. military services. Following U.S. military insignia lore, "gold is worth more than silver, but silver outranks gold." This is due to the fact that the U.S. Army decreed in 1832 that infantry colonels would wear gold eagles on an epaulet of silver and all other colonels would wear silver eagles on gold. When majors and lieutenant colonels received their leaves of rank, this tradition could not continue. It came to pass that silver leaves represented lieutenant colonels and gold, majors. However, the case of lieutenants differs: first lieutenants had been wearing silver bars for 80 years before second lieutenants had any bars at all; second lieutenants were granted a single gold bar in 1917. With the standardization of U.S. military insignia in the early 20th century, the insignia revisions applied to U.S. Navy officers. On naval uniforms - rank insignia notwithstanding - in particular, gold was applied to base elements of insignia, such as anchors on the U.S. Navy hat badge; and silver to mottos and symbols of the eagle and federal shield. Gold remained the province of officers and senior positions, whereas silver and pewter was relegated to the enlisted. Curiously, the motto on the the on U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer hat badge was silver, and that of a steward: gold. This follows the mentioned reversal of colors between officers and enlisted - with the steward belonging to a class attached to and not of officers.

USN Steward Blouse.

In rank-based shipboard society, it is only at dinner hour that some rules are suspended for the few - the stewards. During the Second World War, in the U.S. Navy, and the Army sea services, officers and men mess separately; furthermore, on British merchantmen at the time, officers and departments mess separately (as detailed by Lowery in Ultramarine). Up until the present-day, the U.S. Navy has the further distinction of having not only separate wardrooms and mess for officers and enlisted men, but also for Chief Petty Officers. By virtue of tradition, the latter have a separate galley serving portions greater in quantity and open later than those of their fellow sailors. Given the strict hierarchy aboard ship, and the stern rules banning enlisted personnel from the officers' wardroom and chiefs' mess, stewards and commissarymen transcend these strictures to serve food. An unauthorized sailor found in these spaces could find himself at captain's mast or at court-martial and later suffering harsh disciplinary proceedings (it also goes the opposite way; officers may not fraternize with enlisted sailors on or off duty; doing so, they face dismissal from the service). Since instant recognition is important aboard ship, a special hat with a distinct badge and often always white square rig sailor uniform or special white blouse and duck trousers (even when the uniform of the day may be service dress blue) marks the steward apart.

The U.S. Army Transportation Service officer stewards have a tradition in their uniforms and insignia reaching to a time before even the color blue became a color associated with uniforms maritime. In pre-Enlightenment England, aristocratic lords gave their servants lead or pewter badges to sew onto their clothes to mark them as their own. From the 15th century onward, royalty in the British Isles distributed uniform suits of clothes to courtiers, as did leading bankers to all employees. In time, this became a practice of all British "great houses." It is worth mentioning that these suits of clothes, although well made, denoted the wearer as not being a member of the aristocracy, with the visual cue of silver braid. It came to pass that a traditional livery color became silver. By the 19th century, officer stewards became a facet of shipboard life in the Royal Navy; as they were considered servants, their uniforms followed precedent. In time, stewards wore prestige items, such as coats and visor hats; albeit, with markers of their inferior status - servants although a class apart, needed to impart a pleasing image in the wardroom. Nineteenth-century British commercial liners, offering first-class passage to the monied, mirrored military fashion - which in itself was a reflection of aristocratic costume - in the clothing its officers, sailors and stewards. The U.S. Army Transportation Service, born out of necessity during the Spanish-American War, built a fleet of ships larger than that of the U.S. Navy; some of the larger transports (considered "show boats") ferried military personnel and U.S. diplomats to far-flung newly acquired U.S. possessions. The ships were manned by civilian personnel who wore uniforms following the fashion trends of the day: deck officers wore gold lace on their cuffs and stewards were accented in silver - as were their counterparts on the commercial liners. At the same time, the newly-imperial United States began to carry complements of Filipino nationals alongside African-American cooks as stewards onboard its ships. Taking this into consideration, ships could be construed as reproducing the "great house" tradition with colonials and second-class citizens filling menial roles.

USN Steward Rates.

After the Second World War, with the independence of the Philippines and integration of the U.S. Navy, the servant status of stewards gradually faded away. In today's U.S. Navy, the traditional steward is no more, he is a Culinary Specialist (cum Mess Managment Specialist in 2004). Up until 1975, Stewards and Cooks were two separate ratings in the U.S. Navy, sharing much of the same responsibilies - with a difference. At that time, the Steward's Mate (SD) rating was abolished and combined with that of Commissary Specialist (CS) to form the Mess Managment Specialist Rating. Prior, stewards served as cooks or bakers for officers' mess; they also tidied-up officers' quarters and in a subserviant role, served meals in wardroom. The Commissary Specialist (CS) did nothing but cook for enlisted personnel, but in a more democratic fashion. Old systems die hard, especially among those who enjoy a percieved, albeit subaltern priviledge; even with mandated rate reorganization, the older stewards did not wish to go into the crew's galley, and by the same token the Commisarymen refused to enter the wardroom; in effect, the indoctrinated segregation held, and the two classes of men remained in their respective work areas. However, in the 1960s the U.S. Navy institued a practice of rotating seamen in and out of ships and shore stations in an effort to broaden once compartmentalized skill sets. Men new to the rate shifted easily between both the wardroom and the galley - especially with the abolition of many of the steward's servant duties; officers now shined their own shoes and made their own bunks. However, despite the regulations and rate shuffling, the tradition of the "Tip system" remains; wherein an individual officer or CPO tips a "Mess Cook" to shine his shoes and tidy up his wardroom. Moreover, with rate combination, the old mess cook system still applied to the wardroom with stewards merely renamed "Mess Attendants". In the present day, with 90-day rotations, they still do menial chores such as cleaning the wardroom, running laundry to the ship's laundry and maintaining "Officer Country." It is also worth noting that the 90-day "Mess Cook" does all the cleaning, and most of the serving in the cafeteria-style enlisted mess deck; he also hauls food from the store rooms and reefer decks to the galley. These days, apparently galleymen require direction from outside the ranks - previously the province of Chief Steward - as a non-CS First Class Petty Officer - also assigned 90-days at a time - oversees the Mess Cooks; he is the Mess-Decks-Master-At-Arms. As a historical footnote, during battle, Stewards were stretcher bearers; and Commissarymen served in gun crews and fire fighters; no longer.

Much can be said about the symbols worn by the stewards: from the 1930s onward, they wore the crescent over horizontal bars, their cook counterparts wore rank chevrons. With the institution of the rate in 1948, Commissarymen wore keys over a quill, and then in with rate integration, both badges changed to a quills and a cook book - the symbol of stewards in 1963. As can be divined, over the decades, the rate has been dissolved and reconstituted, with various roles removed and added; including the loss of the traditional crescent.

The images found with this entry illustrate different examples of insignia worn by stewards aboard various types of ships. It is worth mentioning that the crescent symbol has been used throughout the US military to denote food stores and cooks and outhouses; this symbol can be traced to either represent a camp cook's "crescent rolls" or the traditional heraldic symbol of "increase."

References:
Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski (editors), Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200-1400. Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicholson: London, 1987, Cat 448

Jim Garamone, "Insignia: The Way You Tell Who's Who in the Military" in Defense Link. U.S. Department of Defense: Washington D.C., Novemeber 1999.

Bureau of Naval Personnel, "Filipinos in the United States Navy."Department of the Navy - Naval Historical Center: Washington D.C., October 1976.

P&O Lines (The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company)
Catering Petty Officer.
Badge, 50mm diameter. Silver wire on wool backing.
Circa 1970s.

British Royal Navy hat insignia has the following pattern:

Tally - ratings.
Fouled anchor surrounded by a gold rope, surmounted by crown - petty officers
Fouled anchor surrounded by a gold rope and small wreath, surmounted by crown - chief petty officers.
Fouled anchor on oval, surrounded by a wreath, surmounted by crown - officers.

In this specific example, this is a private company, and they have employed the Royal Navy petty officer design for their own catering petty officers. In this case, a silver sun surrounded by an alternating band of blue and silver - blue and white being the traditional heraldic symbol for waves.

The British are noted for their fine craftsmanship in regard to nautical insignia; I have been hard-pressed to find a poorly made British item of insignia from the middle of the last century.

P&O Lines (The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company)
Catering Officer.
Badge, 65mm x 45mm. Silver wire on wool backing.
Circa 1970s.

This hat badge follows the classic British Passenger Lines steward badge design of taking an element of the deck officer's hat badge, enlarging and turning it silver. In this example, the P&O deck officer's badge is the setting sun on heraldic waves surmounted by a fouled anchor.

This particular badge was issued in the 1970s, before P&O hat badges took on their current configuration.

Military Sea Transport Service
Commissary Chief Petty Officer Badge.
35mm x 24mm , Cupro-nickel.
Hallmark, Gemsco A.G.O. G-2 . Circa 1953-1963.

The US Army Transport Service and US Navy Transport Service merged at the end of the Second World War to form the Military Sea Transport Service. This organization came under the purvue of the US Navy. In the mid-1960s, the service changed its name to the Military Sealift Command. Throughout each of its permutations, the MSTS/MSC retained the insignia of the ATS with slight modifications. With the change of MSTS to MSC, the crescent flipped.

This silver crescent, is worn by commissary officers as a collar device or by Chief Petty officers as within a wreath as a hat device. The old days of woven steward's hat badges is no more. The hallmark is consistent with Institute of Heraldry (IOH) manufacturer's numbers; in this case 1953-1963 - often a "-N" will mean that the Navy approved the insignia.

US Army Transport Service
Commissary Chief Petty Officer woven hat badge.
Silver thread on wool backing; attached to mohair band. No synthetics.
Device, 70mm x 40mm.
Circa Second World War.

During the Second World War, standardization was secondary to getting boots on the ground. In the specific case of the Army Transport Service/Transportation Corps - Water Division, the mariners were civilian, therefore were not overtly compelled to adhere to uniform standards.

Men did hold rank and rate aboard ship, and the distinctions were subtle. Chief Petty Officers wore visor hats with their rate on a hat badge. Unauthorized, but worn devices were woven. Issued devices were metal. In terms of steward hat insignia, I have noted three variations: silver-aluminum thread, yellow thread with small gold foil devices and stamped metal wreaths with un-affixed silver crescents.

As a means of identification: ATS/TC-WD wore silver steward insignia; that is silver crescents and also silver metal hat badges. The U.S. Maritime Service and War Shipping Administration wore gold steward insignia - following the U.S. Navy precident.

United States Lines
Steward Department Officer hat badge.
Wreath, 70mm x 43mm. Brass with silver wash.
Flag, 25mm by 23mm. Enamel on brass.
Manufacturer: Gemsco. Circa Second World War.

This hat badge can be definitively dated to the Second World War by the Gemsco hallmark on the reverse; the hallmark is Gemsco surrounded by a wreath. The enamel flag design is consistent with USL flags from the period. Other variations of the flag, from the l931-1938 period have the USL initials - these flags are seen on badges throughout the Second World War. A sleek eagle design debuted in the mid 1950s, around the time of the SS United States launch.

Given the high quality and crisp detail of the stamped wreath, and fine enamel work, this hat badge was worn by a Chief Steward. The silver wash has flaked from the surface of the wreath, but is especially present in areas of low relief.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Floating Plant

2009-08-15T17:13:00.019-04:00

us army corps engineers floating plant.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has traditionally operated a wide variety of watercraft in support of the water resources and infrastructure under its purview. These vessels are found in the major waterways of the United States and its territories - once including the Panama Canal Zone when it was a U.S. territory, and South Vietnam during the war. Floating Plant, as these vessel are known, are manned by a civilian crews. The officers are licensed by U.S. Coast Guard; and presently most are graduates of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy or other U.S. Maritime schools.

The military-status of Floating Plant personnel has had a chequered past. During the Second World War and the Korean War, unlike their colleagues serving in the Army Transportation Service, they were militarized and called to active duty. At the tail end of the Vietnam War, during the organizational reforms of the U.S. Army, Floating Plant personnel were deemed civilians.

us army corps engineers floating plant.

In order to identify the officers serving on dredges, towboats, and ships of 60 feet or more, the Corps of Engineers directed they wear uniforms starting in 1969. The officers already wore khaki Navy-inspired uniforms with a variety of insignia denoting rank. Up until this point, hat badges were improvised and worn at the individual's discretion. Some wore a Maritime Service-style gold wreath with a Corps of Engineers branch insignia collar device in the center; others wore ball caps or garrison caps with the same.

Vessel Hayward.

With the new regulations came an end to improvisation and officially sanctioned khaki uniforms, headgear and employee identification. The khaki uniform was retained and reefers abolished, and officers were given a combination hat. The means of determining an individual's position aboard vessel is indicated by identification plates: Master, Engineer (rank) and Mate (rank). License state is indicated by the color of the wear hat's chinstrap: gold-colored for Coast Guard-licensed officers, black for all others. The Floating Plant personnel also wear a unique hat badge. The symbolism of the insignia is explained thus:

[...] silver Engineer castle with a gold anchor supporting on its stock, a silver eagle, wings displayed. The anchor represents the maritime functions of Floating Plant Personnel and the eagle represents Federal service.

The original directives provided for changing of hat cover from khaki to white, depending upon the season; current regulations do not state as such.

Governing regulations for Floating Plant personnel uniforms:

? (30 October 1969).
ER 670-2-3 (20 April 1987).
ER 1130-2-520, Appendix S & W (29 November 1996).

It is really this hat badge and that of the U.S. Army Transport Service that piqued my interest in Sea Service hat badges. Having been raised in the Navy and always keen on matters maritime, I had never known that the USACE had a civilian-manned fleet of ships. I am still mostly unsure who strikes the current insignia, as they do not have U.S. Government contract manufacturer hallmarks; so for all I know, they may be made in some Army machine shop in Philadelphia.

Floating Plant, 1970s
55mm x 63mm. Gray gun metal body and gold anodized anchor.
No hallmark.

obverse.

reverse.

Floating Plant, 1990-present.
55mm x 63mm. Grey gun metal body and gold anodized anchor.
No hallmark.

Reverse of badge is coated in thin layer of dark gray acrylic; also on reverse, not the crisp detail lacking in the earlier version. The beak is damaged; perhaps due to poor stamping/filing.

obverse.	reverse
reverse detail.

U.S. Corps of Engineers Branch Insignia
25mm x 18mm. Gold-plated brass.
No hallmark. Circa 1950.

This example was worn on Floating Plant personnel garrison hat. This device is pre-Second World War; apparently it was passed down from through the decades via a thrifty Quartermaster. Note cut-out windows and fine detail.

Floating Plant Variant
60mm x 70mm. Copper with "gold coating"
N.S. Meyer Inc., New York hallmark. Allegedly circa 1950s-60s.

This is most probably a fantasy or fake. This badge is comprised of elements found in unofficial (pre-1968 ) woven and metal variants of Floating Plant hat badges: wreath, castle & eagle.

The wreath is of traditional U.S. Army Transport Service & ROTC design; most Floating Plant variants are of contemporary period Maritime Service-style wreaths. The wreath has pitting as seen in casts. The reverse shows that the manufacturer had some difficulty in positioning the bars for soldering.

The castle has an N.S. Meyer Inc. New York hallmark. If this were a poor fake, we'd see evidence of sheared-off keeper pin posts.

Capping the emblem is an eagle; this eagle is MSTS officer-style (circa 1950s-1960s).

Overall nicely polished. Not quite sure what to make of this. Fantasy, fake, pattern or variant. Who knows?

obverse.	reverse.
reverse detail.

Hat Badge Production Methods

2009-08-01T15:45:00.018-04:00

Maritime Service CPO obverse.
Red enamels and silver.

Maritime Service CPO Reverse.
Note silver toning of solder.

The methods of making a hat badge is similar to the process of making a coin: they can be cast or stamped... only there're additional processes after the initial coining (stamping). Casting a badge is often imprecise and lacks the crisp lines found in stamping. This entry will detail coining and die production.

Casting
Casting involves wax casting, molten metal and sand. Casting, more often than not, is the province of reproductions. A cast badge can be quickly identified by a seam along the edge, and a particularly hasty employment of the process is belied by pitting on the reverse. I have never seen a cast badge by any of the major insignia companies: Vanguard, Gemsco, Amico or Viking. Do not be fooled by the claim of "theatre created"; no Navy man or merchant sailor has been so hard up as a cast a badge in a ship's shop; sew a hash mark, sure.

Coining/Stamping
Badge manufacture is a fairly straight-forward and precise process. If you take a moment to inspect a badge, oftentimes you'll notice the high level of craftsmanship employed and often crisp lines - this is an artifact of the stamping process. It takes five distinct phases to produce a stamped hat badge; these processes have remained, for the most part, unaltered since the Second World War to the present day.

1. Stamp
A sheet of metal is placed under a press and the metal is embossed with the design found on the die. Common base metals are malleable substances which respond well under pressure, such as brass or silver (never steel or iron). The die will have pins indicating proper line up of the obverse and reverse dies; in a single stroke by either hand wince or machine press, the die pairing brings up the design. Even crisper designs are achieved by two strikes.

On older badges, you can visually determine if the base metal is brass by the presence of verdigris. Verdigris is a pale green coating of the metal produced when the metal has been exposed to sea or saltwater over time. I personally think the presence of verdigris lends a handsome look to a badge.

After the stamping is completed, the edges are trimmed of excess metal (salvage) and the jagged edges are filed. At this point, the badge is pierced if necessary. Piercing may be done with a small precision drill or minute punch points. The overall effect is to not to bend the metal.

2. Solder & Fusion
Devices, such as screw shanks or attach pins are soldered onto the base badge. Common lead/copper amalgams of lead, copper or silver/zinc are used during this process. Here, the jewelers' or electronic machinists' soldering gun is employed.

On hat badges, you can oftentimes determine the composition of the solder by using the following visual cues. Lead is highly malleable, and has a quicksilver color; copper oftentimes develops verdigris over time; and silver/zinc presents a deep patina, sometimes almost black, over time.

A hard solder of silver is used with hat badges so manufacturers may enamel the badge or pass assay. Such solder allows the badge parts to not come apart or desolder during the enamel firing process.

Badges which are not to be enameled or have epoxy applied are polished; otherwise...

3. Enamel & Epoxy
After soldering, the badge is allowed to cool and enamels and epoxy are applied. In terms of actual badge production, this is an extremely time-consuming task. Enamel is a paste-like substance comprised of powdered glass and distilled water; epoxy is a resin paste.

After the the badge is cleaned in a bath of sulphuric acid and dried at 212F, either paste (glass in a molten state, resin in paste) is applied to the surface of the badge. Application methods involve either being either poured or brushed. The badge is then fired in a kiln between 1400-1500F for 2-5minutes - depending upon the enamel properties - for the enamel to fuse to the metal. This process is repeated for each individual color. The end product of enameling should be of a lustrous and uniform appearance without bubbles.

After enameling, the components of the badge are now stoned. Stoning is done via diamond or sand mesh cloth. At the completion of the process, the enamel is flush, with individual die lines visible.

4. Polish
Badges are now polished to a high luster. Polishing is achieved using high RPM diamond-brush polishing machines.

5. Plate/Anodize
Plating is an electro-chemical process of depositing metals onto the surface of the badge. Anodization is a process of altering the crystal structure of the metal near the surface and creating a sealed and overall corrosion resistant surface; the trade name for this is STA-BRITE. Various manufactures, have anodize hat badges since the mid-1970s; Ira Green was a pioneer in the field.

In terms of plating, maritime hat badges are found have nickle, gold, rhodium and silver plate. Since a badge is usually not plated in two metals, more other than not, badges are comprised of different parts and attached to each other via pins, screws, solder or adhesive (super glue anyone? I've seen Senior Chief badges with star applied thusly). To plate, the badges are placed on racks and lowered into a tub. Electrodes are put into position, the solution is zapped for a specified period of time and then parts removed.

6. Assembly
Once the badges are air-dried and removed from their plating rack, their constituent parts are assembled and the badge is complete.

Maritime Service CPO hat badge hub.

Die production
Die production is pretty exciting and having an actual hat badge hub or die is quite a gift.

First, an artist creates a large plaster model the badge. The model can be any where from two to eight times larger than the end badge. Once the model is approved, it is coated with rubber; the rubber is baked and then removed - creating an epoxy galvano. Next, a Janvier reducing lathe is used to reduce the image onto a steel master hub. Once complete, the master hub is then hardened via heat-treating.

The master hub is then used to make a master dies via a process called hubbing. Hubbing involves pressing the master hub into a steel blank to impress the image into the die. The master die is then used to form as many working hubs as needed through the same process, and then the working hubs are put through the same process to form working dies. These working dies are the ones used to produce the badges.

The process of transferring the hub to the die can be repeated as many times as necessary; the difference between a hub and a die is that the hub has a raised image and a die has an incuse image, so one forms the other.

Public Health Service

2009-07-19T14:07:00.013-04:00

Public Health Service,
originally uploaded by waterclock.

U.S. PHS hat badge.

No hallmark, however manufactured by Gemsco, NY (General Merchandising Co.) with Second World War pattern dies. Same die used for base was also used for War Shipping Administration hat badges.
Badge is plated with 1/20 10K Gold.

I personally think this design is horrible; the eagle is not at all graceful. The pattern for the anchor and caduceus continues to be used on contemporary U.S. PHS hat badges.

Reverse.

Badge base reverse.

Shield obverse.

Shield reverse; incuse punch detail.

American President Lines

2009-07-18T13:22:00.011-04:00

American President Lines,
originally uploaded by waterclock.

American President Lines hat badge.

Gemsco hallmark on flag. Eagle and shield sterling; wreath brass/gold-plate. House flag, enamel with gold fill. Second World War era.

badge: 60mm x 65mm
flag: 25mm x 22mm

American President Lines was formed by the U.S. Maritime Commission in 1938 to stave off the impending bankruptcy of the Dollar Line, the leading carrier between the U.S. west coast and Asia. It is estimated that the company's total liability in 1930s dollars was $17 million, with assets around $11 million and debt interest at $80,000 per month. Along with the government bail-out came a corporate restructuring, with allied changes in logos and insignia. The flag, as designed by the U.S. Maritime Commission, is red with a white eagle and a white star in each corner, recalling the Dollar Line's red and white colors while evoking the U.S. Presidential flag - which at the time was blue with an eagle and four white stars.

During the Second Word War, American President Lines acted as an agent for the U.S. War Shipping Administration, overseeing vessel manning, equipping, overhaul and repair, handling of cargo and passengers, and fueling. Ships' officers and crew insignia changed to match that of the U.S. Maritime Service; officers' hat badges, such as the above example, changed from the usual shipping company house flag on wool-backing with wire and thread wreath to that of the house flag on Maritime Service eagle - this was a precedent followed by many U.S. shipping companies at the time.

The company’s fleet was used for the war effort alongside hundreds of Liberty and Victory ships. Later in the war, the U.S. War Shipping Administration began to use containers to ship vital supplies more quickly and efficiently than traditional break-bulk methods. As such, the U.S. government built 16 additional specially-fitted ships for American President Lines.

By the end of the war, the American President Lines' assets were estimated at $40 million. R. Stanley Dollar, the heir of the Dollar Lines company, initiated the "Dollar Case" in order to force the government to return the company to his family. The case continued for the next seven years with Dollar eventually prevailing. By 1947, American President Lines returned to peacetime activities, once again providing passenger service on routes like the company's celebrated round-the-world service. Insignia changes followed suite; with officers licensed by the U.S. Maritime Service wearing U.S. Maritime Service hat badges with their company uniforms - if so desired. In 1988, American President Lines officially changed its name to APL, Inc.; the company is now a subsidiary of NOL (formerly Neptune Orient Lines) of Singapore.

House flags of American President Lines:

Red with a white eagle and a white star in each corner. 1938-1955
White with a red eagle and "American President Lines" in white over span of eagle. 1955-1980
White with a red eagle and "American President Lines" in blue beneath eagle. 1980-1988
White with a red eagle and "APL" in blue beneath eagle. 1988-present

References:
A reference I found useful for tracking house flags is Lloyd's House Flags and Funnels. A facsimile of the out-of-print 1912 edition available here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/lloyds-house-flags-and-funnels-1912/8504627

Panama Railroad Steamship Company

2009-07-18T12:38:00.010-04:00

Panama Railroad Steamship Company,
originally uploaded by waterclock.

Panama Railroad Steamship Company hat badge.

30cm x 30cm

White enamel swallowtail house pennant (flag), black enamel P and gold fill.

No hallmark, but definitely Gemsco. The rear screw and flag style dates to it to the 1940s-50s (see below). This could either have been mounted on a wool-backing in the center of a wire and thread wreath or applied to Maritime Service-syle eagle (although the shank is too short for the latter).

Panama Railroad Steamship Company (also known as Panama Steamship Company and Panama Line) was incorporated in New York in 1862 (or 1889) and operated to 1981. There are differing accounts of how and when this line was established: it could have been in 1862 to funnel passengers and freight to the newly constructed Panama Railroad; or it was established in 1889 by the French Isthmian Canal Company to support its construction efforts. After Panama became independent of Colombia with U.S. support, the United States government took over the canal-building effort and purchased the assets of the already bankrupt French company, including the shipping line. The line's heyday was during the construction period; once the canal was finished in 1914 the line settled down to a more mundane level of business supporting the maintenance and operation of the canal and its supporting infrastructure, including the railroad. During the Second World War, the U.S. War Shipping Administration militarized the ships and crew, since cargoes traveling through the canal were of critical national importance; some graduates of the Maritime Service schools in Tampa, Florida and Pass Christian, Mississippi manned the company's ships. After the war, it was the target of constant attacks by privately owned shipping firms who disliked having to compete with a government-owned line, but the Panama Line was so efficiently run that it managed to stave off calls for privatization until Panama took over responsibility for maintaining the canal and railroad in 1981.

The Panama Line used two different house flags:

A white swallowtail with a black P. 1912-1950s. P. Sources: Lloyds (1912), Wedge (1926), National Geographic (1934).
A blue over red swallowtail with a white triangle in the hoist extending to the fork, and a blue P on the white triangle. late 1950s-1981 (conjecture). Source: US Navy H.O. (1961).